Mancy

Mancy

Mancy is a podcast about how magic has shaped human history and our culture, including pop culture. It features spoken word poet RJ Walker and psychic Elle Alder. They explore different "-mancies" which are different methods of divination. Each episode features stories of magic and Elle attempts to replicate the method researched by RJ. They also attempt to use these mancies in a more contemporary way to reflect the struggles of our time.

Episodes

December 18, 2024 53 mins

RJ and Elle explore the life and inventions of Wolfgang Von Kempelen. His speech making machine, the great great great great great great great grandfather of Hatsune Miku, and his wondrous "Mechanical Turk" A chess playing automaton that stunned the world by defeating Chess legends and world leaders.  RJ then reveals the Mechanical's turks secret and Elle discusses the implications. RJ does a brief overview of fortun...

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Elle and RJ begin their coverage of Mechanomancy, divination by Machine. RJ discusses the life of John Murray Spear and his transition from the Unitarian faith into Spiritualism. RJ goes into detail about Spear's attempts to build a Mechanical Messiah that will usher in an age of New Motive Power. RJ an Elle recount their trip to San Francisco to the Musee Mecanique where RJ acquired a vintage Zoltar reading. Elle interprets t...

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October 2, 2024 37 mins

RJ and Elle continue their coverage of bug magic. RJ discusses maggot therapy and its historical uses. RJ then discusses the demon known as Beelzebub aka The Lord of the Flies. After a quick diversion into the origins of Pokemon, RJ brings up the Kodoku spell and draws a comparison between the two. Elle and RJ then travel into the mountains and Elle turns over some rocks and logs to perform and Entomancy reading for Jana.

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September 26, 2024 56 mins

RJ and Elle recount their experiences with  spiders and RJ discusses the history of spiders in mythology. RJ recounts Ovid's story of Arachne and reads an anthropologists recorded Anansi story. RJ and Elle then discuss the arachnomancy readings that are currently popular in West Africa. RJ and Elle then find a black widow spider  and Elle divines a question for Christon using the web.

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This is an episode written by Elle Alder and presented to RJ Walker. 

Elle leads the audience through a guided meditation or astro-travel ceremony of a Zar - a healing magic ceremony that comes from the geographical region of the horn of Africa. 

The surprise modern take of this ritual is Elle taking RJ for an afternoon of Ecstatic Dance. RJ is delighted by the number of willing interviewees and finds a wide range...

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February 7, 2024 80 mins

RJ and Elle continue their coverage of Geomancy, earth magic. RJ describes the Harmonic Convergence event that took place in 1987 around the world. RJ also describes the history of Sedona's magical "vortexes" that are rumored to amplify spiritual and psychic energies. Elle then re-performs the readings for Christopher Fox Graham's kids. The readings coincide with their ancient greek namesakes and Elle uses Astra...

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January 31, 2024 48 mins

RJ and Elle begin their coverage of Geomancy, divination using the Earth. RJ goes into the history of Ley Lines and how these debunked theories have continued to this day. RJ describes the Earth Mysteries movement and the beginnings of the New Age movement and teases the Harmonic Convergence event that helped put Sedona Arizona on the map. Elle and RJ describe their journey to a Sedona Vortex and RJ admits that he messed up the rec...

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December 6, 2023 90 mins

RJ and Elle continue their coverage of hexes. RJ discusses the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's supposed hexing of the Nazis during WW2. Elle weighs in on hexes as liberation. RJ discusses the recent history of Hexes for political action. RJ and Elle discuss the 1960's and 70's political group known as WITCH. They then discuss the recent hexing of Brett Kavenaugh. Elle then provides information on how to perform a...

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November 29, 2023 92 mins

Mancy returns to kick off a new season! Hexes, magic intended to do harm. RJ dives into the Powow magic of the Pennsylvania Dutch and explains the disambiguation between their brand of hex magic what is commonly accepted as a hex or curse. Elle reads hexes from a grimoire and RJ attempts to use one of the hexes to cure hir chronic headaches. RJ discusses the history of the nithing curse, odinism, and the volkish movement. Elle weig...

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October 31, 2022 82 mins

RJ and Elle continue their discussion of Seances live at the UAA Art Castle. RJ goes over the biography of Cora Scott, a medium and notable organizer in the spiritualist movement. He discusses fraud psychics, and the debunkers. RJ goes over the history of The Ghost Club and the Society for Psychical Research or SPR. The drama between spiritualists and skeptics. And also the drama between skeptics and other skeptics that continues t...

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October 30, 2022 72 mins

A special live episode of Mancy recorded from the UAA art castle, a historic church built in the 1800s. This live episode is made possible by the Utah Arts Alliance offering this venue. 

RJ discusses the history of Seances in America and does a short biography of medium Leafy Anderson who spearheaded the spiritualist movement for black americans.  He discusses Leafy's spirit guide, Black Hawk, and the ways in which sh...

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October 7, 2022 4 mins

A special announcement! We're kicking off Season 5 on October 26th 2022 with a special live show! We're going to be covering Seances and you can be in the audience while Elle performs a Live Seance at the UAA Art Castle. Tickets available here:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/seance-mancy-podcast-live-tickets-430465141827?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm...

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June 22, 2022 107 mins

Elle continues her coverage of the Akashic Records, her specific area of expertise. She brings Jennifer Martin into the studio, another professional psychic who received similar training on the akashic records. Elle begins by answering questions posed by listeners of the show, and then moves into an introduction of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (HPB) the founder of the theosophical movement and controversial figure among psychics and o...

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June 8, 2022 55 mins

RJ and Elle finish their coverage of charms by looking at the remaining charms present in Lucky Charms Cereal. RJ and Elle give their backgrounds with breakfast cereal. RJ opens by describing what a blue moon is, and why we call it that. He then talks about when the moon actually turns blue. He then discusses some of the mythology and magic connected to rainbows, the lucky and unlucky parts as well as some historical background on ...

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June 1, 2022 60 mins

Elle and RJ continue their coverage of charms. RJ looks into the egyptian ankh and Elle provides context with her experience from Egypt. RJ then continues his coverage of each lucky charm in lucky charms cereal. Starting with clovers, then hearts, and then finally balloons. RJ gets a guest reading from @theworkerinclay on tiktok using a magnus archives themed charms set. 

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May 18, 2022 56 mins

RJ and Elle kick off Season 2 with coverage of charms. Lucky or otherwise. RJ and Elle discuss lucky or sentimental objects that serve as charms for them. RJ starts the episode with the lore behind the Lucky Rabbit's Foot and the ways it has been culturally appropriated. RJ then discusses the grusome Hand of Glory charm, and the lore surrounding horseshoes. The Pennsylvania Dutch are brought up again in relation to Barn Stars ...

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April 6, 2022 64 mins

RJ and Elle continue their coverage of Astragalomancy. RJ discusses the history of loaded dice and cheating dice. RJ also comes clean about using loaded dice in games of Dungeons and Dragons. RJ then dives into some of the history of DnD, the good and the bad. A slight dive into the satanic panic that arose from the game in the 1980's. RJ goes over a very unique and specific case involving the disappearance of James Egbert and...

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March 30, 2022 60 mins

RJ and Elle begin their coverage of Astragalomancy, divination with Dice. RJ begins by describing his father's passion for Craps and Elle describes a dice tarot variant that used to be available in her store. RJ then begins the long, complex history of dice which goes well into pre-history. RJ describes the egyptian game of Senet and the Royal Game of Ur as some of the earliest examples of board games we know of. RJ then descr...

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March 16, 2022 48 mins

RJ and Elle conclude their coverage of Augury by looking at research conducted on birds.  RJ establishes the intelligence of Corvids, and then discusses the sad relationship humans have with pigeons. He brings up the domestication of the pigeon, and messenger pigeons. He then discusses pigeons who are decorated war heros including Cher Ami and G.I. Joe who saved hundreds of lives by delivering intelligence during the world wars. RJ...

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March 9, 2022 81 mins

Continuing coverage of Augury, RJ discusses the folkloric significance of birds as they relate to psychopomps. RJ and Elle discuss the practice of sky burials and maritime lore about birds. RJ retells the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and then follows that up with a mormon folktale known as the Miracle of the Gulls, which is the reason the California Gull is Utah's state bird and is venerated among mormons. RJ then does a long l...

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