August 26, 2025 • 28 mins
Back for another crossover episode is Kristen Bear, host of Creative Sobriety. She knows a thing
or two about potions, hysteria, and the ways society
polices what we do with our bodies and our minds.
So grab your mandrake root and sprinkle some salt,
because today, we are getting a broader understanding of
witches, potions, and the original ‘bad trip’ that may have
sparked the Salem witch trials, plus the spookiest spell of
all- the one that keeps you sober.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/broads-next-door--5803223/support.
or two about potions, hysteria, and the ways society
polices what we do with our bodies and our minds.
So grab your mandrake root and sprinkle some salt,
because today, we are getting a broader understanding of
witches, potions, and the original ‘bad trip’ that may have
sparked the Salem witch trials, plus the spookiest spell of
all- the one that keeps you sober.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/broads-next-door--5803223/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Which women banished for herbal knowledge. They weren't witches, they
were healers, but in the Appalachian Hills that made them dangerous.
For centuries, women in the mountains used roots, herbs, and
ancient remedies passed down from mothers and grandmothers. They tended childbirths,
they treated infections. They knew what bark to boil and
(00:28):
what flower soothed pain. But when outsiders came, missionaries, doctors,
coal bosses, they didn't see wisdom. They saw a threat
to their control, so they labeled them witches. In some towns,
just Ownen in her book could get a woman run out,
or worse, rumors spread. She talks to spirits, she hects
(00:50):
my cow. She don't belong in church. Whole communities turned
on the women who once healed them. Fires were set,
names were erased. Some vanished into the woods, never seen again.
Others stayed silent, bearing their knowledge out of fear. But
the truth still lingers in the hollers and herb gardens.
These women weren't cursed. They were keepers of life, and
(01:13):
they deserve to be remembered. Follow buried Appalasha. If you're
ready to dig up the truth, they tried to burn.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Wait, Hello, neighbors, lovers, friends, and anyone who's ever been
accused of witchcraft for having an herb garden, a headache,
or just you know, existing a little too loudly. I'm
Danielli Scrima and this is Broad's next Door. Today. We're
doing something wicked, something wise, and something just a little
(01:42):
bit intoxicating. And I'm not alone for this one, because
what's a coven without another witch in the circle with me? Today?
Back for another crossover episode is Kristin Behar, host of
Creative Sobriety. She knows a thing or two about potions, hysteria,
and the way society polices what we do with our
(02:04):
bodies and our minds.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Thanks, Daniella, I'm happy to be back, though I promise
I didn't spike the punch with Himbaine before recording. So
grab your Mandrake root and sprinkle some salt, because today
we are getting a broader understanding of witches, potions, and
the original bad trip that may have sparked the Salem
witch Trials. Plus the spookiest spell of all, the one
(02:30):
that keeps you sober?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Hi? Hello, how is everyone? I hope you are doing well,
I hope you're in your protection circle just in case.
We're still having a horrible heat wave in Portland. How
are things where you are, Kristen?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Things are good, Things are good. I'm in Tennessee and
I am pleased to report the suffocating heat of the
South is subsided. This week, we're enjoying some seventies, might
reach eighty, So that's definitely giving me life.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I'm really excited we're doing this one. I watched those
videos you sent me and I was kind of blown away.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah, I'm so glad that you were up for this one.
I did some research over the past month or so
for a substack piece that I wrote about the resurgence
of herbalism, and it led me down this rabbit hole
of the witch trials, And what I learned is that
a lot of the women they were executing were actually
just herbalists, healers, women working with plants and herbs as medicine.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I am not surprised, but I'm excited. This one is
going to be interesting and kind of unhinged. So let's
get into it. Here's the thing. When we talk about
witches mixing up potions, flying on broomsticks or lacing up
love charms. What we're really talking about is pharm McCaul
before pharmacology had a name. The women accused of witchcraft
(04:04):
often had encyclopedia knowledge of herbs, roots, and fungi. They
were the healers, the midwives, the women who knew that
foxglove could study a failing heart, or that mandrake root
could take you out of your body and into another world.
Entirely yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
A twenty twenty two article in the Journal of ethno
Pharmacology called witch's early chemists of the village, pointing out
that their recipes mandrake, hinbane, belladonna all contained tropaine alkaloids,
which translated from science speak means strong hallucinogens, anesthetics, and
(04:45):
sometimes poisons. And this from the National Library of Medicine.
Among the women accused of witchcraft, many were herbalists, proficient
in using local plants to cure illnesses and alleviate pain,
as well as provide love potions, making incantations, and undoing witchcraft.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
So really, like what was demonized as black magic was
just trial and error folk science, which is, weren't cackling
over cauldrons because they were evil. They were cackling because
scope polamine will absolutely make you hallucinate that you're flying.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yeah, And it's so interesting that the same people who
are promoting psilocybin or MDMA therapy for trauma and depression
today would have been burned at the stake in the fifteen, sixteen, seventeenth,
eighteenth centuries if they were women. Of course, you know,
society glorified substances when they're controlled by men. You can
(05:51):
just look at wine at the Last Supper or whiskey
as a symbol of Americana, right, but we demonize them
when they're practiced by women outside of sanctioned roles. I
think this speaks a lot to the messaging that continues
today that women who think they know how best to
heal or treat or decide what's right for their body
are deemed dangerous to society. And even from the angle
(06:15):
of sobriety, it's fascinating, fascinating to me that a psychoactive,
addictive substance, alcohol is mass marketed to society. The common
theme seems to be that mine altering substances and experiences
are okay when they can be capitalized on, and of course,
when men are in control.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Exactly. It's like, if you're a dude in a lab
coat mixing chemicals, you're a scientist. If you're a woman
with a garden and a mortar and pestle, you're a witch.
Same alkaloid, very different pr teams. The guy's got a
different atit.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
They sure did, okay. So here's where things get interesting,
because when we think of the Salem witch trials, we
picture screaming Puritans, girls convulsing in churches, and the devil
allegedly lurking behind every hey bail.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
But there's a theory, and it's not just some stoner
What if TikTok that the hysteria wasn't entirely about satan,
It might have been about spoiled carbs.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
So you're saying gluten intolerance started it all.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Not exactly gluten, more like fungus. The theory goes like this,
The rye crops in Salem may have been infected with ergot,
a fungus that contains alkaloids similar to LSD, which, if
you've ever read a Hunter S. Thompson book or just
had a very sketchy night in college, you know is
(07:50):
not something you want baked into your daily bread. The
symptoms of ergot poisoning, convulsions, hallucinations, tingling, paranoia, even spontaneous
fits of screaming, which yeah, sounds familiar because that is
basically a checklist of what the afflicted girls in Salem
were experiencing.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
These women were tried and killed based on the interpretation
of their psychoactive experience. It's interesting to look at how
differently women's experiences are categorized than men's. When a monk hallucinates,
that is a vision from God, but when a teenage
girl hallucinates, it's the devil inside of her. Right, it
(08:34):
seems like women's bodies and even mental and spiritual experiences
are pathologized when it's outside of a man's.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Control or approval exactly. And the wild thing is that
the older women in the community, the ones accused of
being witches, weren't eating that infected bread. They had their
own food stores, their own diets. So the girls are
tripping their purity bonnets off, the elders aren't, and suddenly
(09:03):
it's burn her, she's a witch. It's the perfect storm
of ignorance, a bit of patriarchy and poor pantry organization.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yeah again, I think it's really interesting to look at
the rise of psychedelics in medicine and even functional nutrition,
because these same things would have been demonized two hundred
years ago. So are we just back to that point
in the cycle, Like, are are we going to have
to endure another round of witch trials in our lifetimes?
(09:34):
I mean, I think there's even an argument that the
rise of sobriety could eventually be weaponized by the pharmaceutical industry.
The alcohol industry is something sinister, Like we're already hearing
a lot of chatter about neo prohibitionism. Is this gonna
be a reverse style witch trial? You know, if you
(09:57):
refuse to take the pills and drink the sauce, you
must be an evil puritan. I digress.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
I hope not. But yeah, Salem wasn't just about fear
of the devil. It might have been the original bad batch,
a mass trip gone wrong with tragic consequences and a
reminder of how quickly society will turn a chemical mystery
into a moral panic. But let's move on to love, potions,
(10:25):
and control, because nothing says healthy relationship goals like secretly
slipping your crush a hallucinogenic. The so called witches love
recipes weren't all candle light and roses. They often included
man drake, which fun fact, has tropain alkaloids that can
cause hallucinations, delirium and sometimes coma, and henbane. Add in headbane,
(10:50):
another hallucinogenic anesthetic, sprinkle an erica nut a stimulant. It's
basically nicotine's flashy cousin, and of course yellow packed with
a phedrin, which is basically the ancestor of amphetamines.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
So what you've got is not romance. It's a dangerous
chemical cocktail that could make someone euphoric, paranoid, sedated, or
just dead. Love potion number nine would have probably been
er visit number nine. I think humans have always tried
(11:29):
engineering desire. Look at the way wine and champagne is marketed.
It's romantic and sexy. It's an accessory for every lover's rendezvous.
It's all glamour and sex until a woman makes a
natural version of it in her basement out of plants
from the garden. Then it's witchcraft, right, And.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
It's also about control. Love potions weren't just about passion.
They were about manipulation, getting to someone to love you
or lust after you against their will, which sounds darkly
familiar because society still blames women for using beauty, fashion,
or even just existing as a kind of potion. So
when we think about witches with bubbling cauldrons, it's not
(12:17):
really that different from modern conversations about who controls desire,
who gets to alter their state, and who gets punished
for it.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
You know, if we look at ancient Greek mythology or
folklore from South America or even Appalachia, the women of
these communities were revered for their connection to the natural world,
their ability to heal using certain herbs. These women became
(12:48):
witches with their potions in the sixteen hundreds and beyond,
But now we have women in their cocktails. On Sex
in the City. Both offer instances of women and descending
into madness. It's just that one is for the profit
of a dude in a suit, and one rejects the
notion that we even need him. Our culture seems to
(13:12):
applaud these socially acceptable versions of altered consciousness, even self destruction,
when they are for the benefit of the patriarchal structure
in place. So exactly, whether it's belladonna and a cauldron
or a cosmo on a Friday Night. The truth is
(13:33):
the same. Altering chemistry to chase love and connection has
always been a thing. Has it been a good thing? No,
definitely not. The question is why society keeps punishing some
people for it, usually women, while celebrating others.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
That brings us to hysteria, gender and punishment. Here's the
thing about Salem. The trials weren't about demons or even
bread gone bad. They were about control. And if you
look at who got accused of witchcraft, the pattern is
crystal clear. It was women who were poor, women who
were widows, women who didn't fit neatly into Puritan society. Basically,
(14:15):
the women who weren't protected by a man. Sound familiar
because the scapegoating didn't stop in sixteen ninety two. The
word hysteria literally comes from the Greek word for uterus, histera.
For centuries, women were diagnosed with wandering womb syndrome and
told their bodies were to blame for any outburst, any sadness,
(14:37):
any rebellion.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
So Salem wasn't an isolated panic. It was part of
a long tradition of saying if a woman is too loud,
too sick, too independent, or too different, it must be supernatural,
and the cure punish her, silence her, control her. That
(15:04):
word hysteria is something every woman has heard, whether from
a father, a partner, a boss, or even a doctor.
Don't be hysterical as if a woman expressing discomfort or
pain or even enlightenment is inappropriate. You know, even from
the angle of sobriety, women are pathologized for how they cope. Right,
(15:28):
drink too much, You're a mess, abstain, you're a prude.
Use SSRIs well, you're crazy. It's all just a new
form of policing women's emotional states. If we fail to
maintain a state of equilibrium in our bodies and brains,
you bet there's a derogatory term for that.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Always. And remember this isn't just about history. Think about
poor Britney Spears locked under a Conservative ship for a decade,
or how women's reproduce ductive health is legislated like it's
a Puritan courtroom. Salem may have hanged twenty people, but
this spirit of Salem lives on every time a woman
(16:09):
is punished for not conforming.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Yeah. I would also add that even sobriety and the
way a woman chooses to maintain and practice or sobriety
is up for discussion. The programs created by two middle
aged white dudes in the nineteen thirties are still court
mandated after dus And offered it every recovery center. Women
(16:35):
are villainized for daring to challenge that language and carve
an individual path that doesn't follow the rule book.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
So when we say Salem hysteria, let's be clear, it
wasn't about ghosts and goblins. It was about patriarchy dressed
up in Puritan black, terrified of women who couldn't be controlled.
So let's get into the witch sobriety archetype.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Oh yeah, okay, So after all this, the potions, the
bread trips, the bonnets, the bonfires, what does the witch
archetype actually mean to us?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Now? For me, the witch is still power, She's wisdom.
She's the woman who knows what plants will heal you
and what plants will take you out and refuses to
apologize for either. She's the one who says, I will
not be silent, I will not be small, And if
you're scared of me, maybe that says more about you.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
And isn't that exactly what sobriety is too? Not in
the sense of Puritan repression, but in the sense of clarity,
choosing to see the world without the haze, choosing not
to be controlled by substances, or by patriarchy, or by
anyone else's script for your life. I see the witch
(17:59):
hunts as an attempt to squash feminine intuition. It's so powerful,
and men are terrified of women listening to their intuition
when it comes to what to do with her body,
with her time, with her money. Like I mentioned earlier,
those ancient Greek goddesses, they were worshiped because of the
(18:19):
deep feminine wisdom they held. Woman was Earth and Mother.
She held the sacred knowledge. I would say she still does.
Even the original Hippocratic Oath paid homage to goddesses like
Panacea a healer.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Right, because when you zoom out, witches were never just
about demons and the devil. They were about independence, and
Salem wasn't about magic. It was about punishing women who
wouldn't conform.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
So maybe the lesson isn't to fear witches at all.
Maybe a lesson is to be one to be the
woman with the garden, with the clarity, with the power.
Whether that's a literal potion, or just the courage to
tell the truth in a world that really doesn't want
to hear it. Maybe the sober woman is a modern witch,
(19:14):
the woman who refuses to be sold poison, labeled as
medicine or anything else that will smooth over her instinctive
wild nature. Sobriety clears the cobwebs of the spiritual pipeline.
It puts our intuition on beast mode, and it's much
harder to trig a woman who's tapped into her innate knowing.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
So next time someone calls you a witch, say thank you,
because it means you've got the wisdom of a healer,
the clarity of sobriety, and the kind of power that's
kept women terrifying men for centuries. Kristen, any final thoughts
do you think we would have been accused of witchcraft?
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Oh? I would have been burned in this city square,
and I would have been running my mouth up until
the very end, and I'm pretty sure we would have
been steak mates, My.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Dear, I am really hopeful that we would have worked
out like some kind of spell. We would have had
the ingredients too kind of get ourselves out of it.
So I do. I do have that hope there that
like maybe we would have lived because we would have.
Like Matt, we're both like really into studying and learning things,
So I feel like we could have like pulled out
some man drake root and you know that's my hopeful,
(20:34):
my hopeful take on it.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Yeah, I like that. I like that better than my version,
and I do. I have a lot of faith in us.
I think we would have figured out a way to
wodating ourselves out of that one.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
For real, we should when we do our retreat, we
should have like some ritual night as part of it. Like,
I think that would be a lot of fun. Absolutely,
we're going to do all the witchy stuff we can make,
like a na cocktail, and it can be like a
potion habit, so it has like properties to it, and
then instead of getting you all drunk, will indoctrinate you
(21:10):
into our our witch's circle. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
I think there's something to the power of suggestion too. Like,
you know, if we name this certain drink a you know,
the key to like feminine awakening, and we all sit
around drinking it and chanting something over and over, I'm
pretty sure something's gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
You know.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
I think it's like the energy you put into something
can be just as witchy and effective uh as anything.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Definitely. And also the power of just gathering together like
the the like that you can really get an energy
from a group setting. That's why I wish there was
like a different alternative to like AA meetings that were
more chill, like without the big book, where you could
just like go with sober people, do you know what
I'm saying, and like get that energy going like kind
(22:06):
of like people do in church, but without going to church.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Yeah. Yeah, there's something really powerful about gathering together with
like the same intention and putting the same energy into
the room. I think really powerful things happen when when
you do that.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Definitely, I agree. Do you have any final thoughts for
us on witches and herbs and hysteria and sobriety.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Yeah, I just think it's really a fascinating topic that
I'm probably going to continue diving down. I am really
pleased to see that herbalism and this kind of movement
towards natural healing is making a resurgence, and we're seeing
a lot of you know, functional drinks come onto the
(22:59):
market and non alcoholic space and people really want more
of this in their life. And I think it kind
of speaks to I don't know, maybe this deeper desire to.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Hysteria and Sobriety check it out.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Hold on, my computers is talking to me. It was
like hold on. It was like, ok I know truly
it was I don't even have any of them on
and it was like, Okay, I found this on the
web for hysteria and so Briety, who are you? Who
was that?
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Like, who are you, ma'am? Excuse me.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Speaking of demons? Oh freaking AI, Come on.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Oh shit, they're on to us.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
They really are enough.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yeah, they're like they're too close to figuring this all out.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
I think maybe as a society, like we've gone a
little we've we've swung a little too far in the
direction of mask energy and that's why shit is blowing
up and falling apart and all this horrible things things
are happening. And I think maybe we're all really hungry
for this feminine you know, wisdom, like a return almost
to like the mother to the source, to something like that.
(24:17):
So I don't know, I want to go down this
whole a little bit farther and just kind of pick
it apart, but there's just something to it.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
We should definitely do a follow up after we've done more,
because I know you're doing a lot of research on
this and you're writing some about it for your step sack.
But we should definitely do like a follow up episode,
maybe get some listeners questions, and then we have like
spy season coming up, even though everything is scary all
of the time, like formally, so I got to think
(24:49):
of like some good episodes for that.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Yeah, I would love to hear people's thoughts on this
subject in particular, and then we can kind of answer
for those maybe in a follow up. And then also,
I know you and I have been trying to figure
out a good time to host some kind of retreat.
You know, we could call it a we can call
it a covin. Uh, we can call it whatever you want.
(25:15):
But I think it'd be cool to get some feedback on,
you know, where people are and maybe a good place
on the West coast to do something like that, maybe
this fall or winter, so let us know.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Definitely, I would definitely like to do something like that
in like October or November before people get too slammed
with like holiday stuff. But when we post this episode,
I'll put up like a poll to see where people
would be interested in going, and like what a good
time commitment would be like three days, two days, a
(25:48):
day and a half.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we can work out the details. I
think it's cool. I think, like, you know, we get
sober and we're kind of like, oh, you know, what cool,
interesting spontaneous things are there for me to do? And
I just think this would be a really cool, kind
of different thing where we could get together and talk
about some of these fun spooky things, make some good drinks,
(26:12):
you know, kind of do this but like with.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
A group of other cool chicks. Absolutely, absolutely so, Kristen.
Where can everyone find you?
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Please find me most everywhere. It's Creative sobriety, so Instagram, TikTok,
I write on substack. You can search Creative Sobriety and
Google and pretty much find all of those things, and yeah,
reach out, send me a.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Message and you can find me online at Tanielaskrima or
at Broad's next Door on all of the things. You
can email me at broadsnextdoor dot com or broad'snext Door
at gmail dot com, or you can slide into my DMS.
I always love hearing from all of you. What Kristen
(27:03):
and I know, like more episode suggestions. We do have
a list too. We also have a list of episodes
that people have sent us, and then instead of going
back to that, we just get new ideas and they're like,
let's talk about this. We're very excited.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Just send you like I just send you like a
random YouTube video and I'm like, we got to talk
about this.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
And we still never did that general Rational Curses episode
that I wrote like a script from for like months ago.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Okay, yeah, we got to do that. There's so many
places to go from there too.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, so all right, well, thank you for listening to
another broads next Door and Creative Sobriety episode. A lot
of people ask me why we don't just start our
own podcast, and I think it's mainly because we both
have so much going on that this is just kind
of easier right now to do crossover episodes that we
(27:59):
do post. But that's like one of the main questions
that I get is why don't we start our own podcast?
So if that's something you really want, like, I think
that that's something worth considering.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Yeah, let us know, I mean, yeah, we were both
always doing a million things. But you know, I mean,
we're already doing this anyway. So if you guys would
prefer like a very niched down podcast that's like spooky sober,
you know, like I don't know, maybe we could make
that happen.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Yeah, let us know. And it was good talking to
you all again. We'll talk to you very soon.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Bye bye bye
Which women banished for herbal knowledge. They weren't witches, they
were healers, but in the Appalachian Hills that made them dangerous.
For centuries, women in the mountains used roots, herbs, and
ancient remedies passed down from mothers and grandmothers. They tended childbirths,
they treated infections. They knew what bark to boil and
(00:28):
what flower soothed pain. But when outsiders came, missionaries, doctors,
coal bosses, they didn't see wisdom. They saw a threat
to their control, so they labeled them witches. In some towns,
just Ownen in her book could get a woman run out,
or worse, rumors spread. She talks to spirits, she hects
(00:50):
my cow. She don't belong in church. Whole communities turned
on the women who once healed them. Fires were set,
names were erased. Some vanished into the woods, never seen again.
Others stayed silent, bearing their knowledge out of fear. But
the truth still lingers in the hollers and herb gardens.
These women weren't cursed. They were keepers of life, and
(01:13):
they deserve to be remembered. Follow buried Appalasha. If you're
ready to dig up the truth, they tried to burn.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Wait, Hello, neighbors, lovers, friends, and anyone who's ever been
accused of witchcraft for having an herb garden, a headache,
or just you know, existing a little too loudly. I'm
Danielli Scrima and this is Broad's next Door. Today. We're
doing something wicked, something wise, and something just a little
(01:42):
bit intoxicating. And I'm not alone for this one, because
what's a coven without another witch in the circle with me? Today?
Back for another crossover episode is Kristin Behar, host of
Creative Sobriety. She knows a thing or two about potions, hysteria,
and the way society polices what we do with our
(02:04):
bodies and our minds.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Thanks, Daniella, I'm happy to be back, though I promise
I didn't spike the punch with Himbaine before recording. So
grab your Mandrake root and sprinkle some salt, because today
we are getting a broader understanding of witches, potions, and
the original bad trip that may have sparked the Salem
witch Trials. Plus the spookiest spell of all, the one
(02:30):
that keeps you sober?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Hi? Hello, how is everyone? I hope you are doing well,
I hope you're in your protection circle just in case.
We're still having a horrible heat wave in Portland. How
are things where you are, Kristen?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Things are good, Things are good. I'm in Tennessee and
I am pleased to report the suffocating heat of the
South is subsided. This week, we're enjoying some seventies, might
reach eighty, So that's definitely giving me life.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I'm really excited we're doing this one. I watched those
videos you sent me and I was kind of blown away.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah, I'm so glad that you were up for this one.
I did some research over the past month or so
for a substack piece that I wrote about the resurgence
of herbalism, and it led me down this rabbit hole
of the witch trials, And what I learned is that
a lot of the women they were executing were actually
just herbalists, healers, women working with plants and herbs as medicine.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I am not surprised, but I'm excited. This one is
going to be interesting and kind of unhinged. So let's
get into it. Here's the thing. When we talk about
witches mixing up potions, flying on broomsticks or lacing up
love charms. What we're really talking about is pharm McCaul
before pharmacology had a name. The women accused of witchcraft
(04:04):
often had encyclopedia knowledge of herbs, roots, and fungi. They
were the healers, the midwives, the women who knew that
foxglove could study a failing heart, or that mandrake root
could take you out of your body and into another world.
Entirely yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
A twenty twenty two article in the Journal of ethno
Pharmacology called witch's early chemists of the village, pointing out
that their recipes mandrake, hinbane, belladonna all contained tropaine alkaloids,
which translated from science speak means strong hallucinogens, anesthetics, and
(04:45):
sometimes poisons. And this from the National Library of Medicine.
Among the women accused of witchcraft, many were herbalists, proficient
in using local plants to cure illnesses and alleviate pain,
as well as provide love potions, making incantations, and undoing witchcraft.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
So really, like what was demonized as black magic was
just trial and error folk science, which is, weren't cackling
over cauldrons because they were evil. They were cackling because
scope polamine will absolutely make you hallucinate that you're flying.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yeah, And it's so interesting that the same people who
are promoting psilocybin or MDMA therapy for trauma and depression
today would have been burned at the stake in the fifteen, sixteen, seventeenth,
eighteenth centuries if they were women. Of course, you know,
society glorified substances when they're controlled by men. You can
(05:51):
just look at wine at the Last Supper or whiskey
as a symbol of Americana, right, but we demonize them
when they're practiced by women outside of sanctioned roles. I
think this speaks a lot to the messaging that continues
today that women who think they know how best to
heal or treat or decide what's right for their body
are deemed dangerous to society. And even from the angle
(06:15):
of sobriety, it's fascinating, fascinating to me that a psychoactive,
addictive substance, alcohol is mass marketed to society. The common
theme seems to be that mine altering substances and experiences
are okay when they can be capitalized on, and of course,
when men are in control.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Exactly. It's like, if you're a dude in a lab
coat mixing chemicals, you're a scientist. If you're a woman
with a garden and a mortar and pestle, you're a witch.
Same alkaloid, very different pr teams. The guy's got a
different atit.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
They sure did, okay. So here's where things get interesting,
because when we think of the Salem witch trials, we
picture screaming Puritans, girls convulsing in churches, and the devil
allegedly lurking behind every hey bail.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
But there's a theory, and it's not just some stoner
What if TikTok that the hysteria wasn't entirely about satan,
It might have been about spoiled carbs.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
So you're saying gluten intolerance started it all.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Not exactly gluten, more like fungus. The theory goes like this,
The rye crops in Salem may have been infected with ergot,
a fungus that contains alkaloids similar to LSD, which, if
you've ever read a Hunter S. Thompson book or just
had a very sketchy night in college, you know is
(07:50):
not something you want baked into your daily bread. The
symptoms of ergot poisoning, convulsions, hallucinations, tingling, paranoia, even spontaneous
fits of screaming, which yeah, sounds familiar because that is
basically a checklist of what the afflicted girls in Salem
were experiencing.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
These women were tried and killed based on the interpretation
of their psychoactive experience. It's interesting to look at how
differently women's experiences are categorized than men's. When a monk hallucinates,
that is a vision from God, but when a teenage
girl hallucinates, it's the devil inside of her. Right, it
(08:34):
seems like women's bodies and even mental and spiritual experiences
are pathologized when it's outside of a man's.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Control or approval exactly. And the wild thing is that
the older women in the community, the ones accused of
being witches, weren't eating that infected bread. They had their
own food stores, their own diets. So the girls are
tripping their purity bonnets off, the elders aren't, and suddenly
(09:03):
it's burn her, she's a witch. It's the perfect storm
of ignorance, a bit of patriarchy and poor pantry organization.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yeah again, I think it's really interesting to look at
the rise of psychedelics in medicine and even functional nutrition,
because these same things would have been demonized two hundred
years ago. So are we just back to that point
in the cycle, Like, are are we going to have
to endure another round of witch trials in our lifetimes?
(09:34):
I mean, I think there's even an argument that the
rise of sobriety could eventually be weaponized by the pharmaceutical industry.
The alcohol industry is something sinister, Like we're already hearing
a lot of chatter about neo prohibitionism. Is this gonna
be a reverse style witch trial? You know, if you
(09:57):
refuse to take the pills and drink the sauce, you
must be an evil puritan. I digress.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
I hope not. But yeah, Salem wasn't just about fear
of the devil. It might have been the original bad batch,
a mass trip gone wrong with tragic consequences and a
reminder of how quickly society will turn a chemical mystery
into a moral panic. But let's move on to love, potions,
(10:25):
and control, because nothing says healthy relationship goals like secretly
slipping your crush a hallucinogenic. The so called witches love
recipes weren't all candle light and roses. They often included
man drake, which fun fact, has tropain alkaloids that can
cause hallucinations, delirium and sometimes coma, and henbane. Add in headbane,
(10:50):
another hallucinogenic anesthetic, sprinkle an erica nut a stimulant. It's
basically nicotine's flashy cousin, and of course yellow packed with
a phedrin, which is basically the ancestor of amphetamines.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
So what you've got is not romance. It's a dangerous
chemical cocktail that could make someone euphoric, paranoid, sedated, or
just dead. Love potion number nine would have probably been
er visit number nine. I think humans have always tried
(11:29):
engineering desire. Look at the way wine and champagne is marketed.
It's romantic and sexy. It's an accessory for every lover's rendezvous.
It's all glamour and sex until a woman makes a
natural version of it in her basement out of plants
from the garden. Then it's witchcraft, right, And.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
It's also about control. Love potions weren't just about passion.
They were about manipulation, getting to someone to love you
or lust after you against their will, which sounds darkly
familiar because society still blames women for using beauty, fashion,
or even just existing as a kind of potion. So
when we think about witches with bubbling cauldrons, it's not
(12:17):
really that different from modern conversations about who controls desire,
who gets to alter their state, and who gets punished
for it.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
You know, if we look at ancient Greek mythology or
folklore from South America or even Appalachia, the women of
these communities were revered for their connection to the natural world,
their ability to heal using certain herbs. These women became
(12:48):
witches with their potions in the sixteen hundreds and beyond,
But now we have women in their cocktails. On Sex
in the City. Both offer instances of women and descending
into madness. It's just that one is for the profit
of a dude in a suit, and one rejects the
notion that we even need him. Our culture seems to
(13:12):
applaud these socially acceptable versions of altered consciousness, even self destruction,
when they are for the benefit of the patriarchal structure
in place. So exactly, whether it's belladonna and a cauldron
or a cosmo on a Friday Night. The truth is
(13:33):
the same. Altering chemistry to chase love and connection has
always been a thing. Has it been a good thing? No,
definitely not. The question is why society keeps punishing some
people for it, usually women, while celebrating others.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
That brings us to hysteria, gender and punishment. Here's the
thing about Salem. The trials weren't about demons or even
bread gone bad. They were about control. And if you
look at who got accused of witchcraft, the pattern is
crystal clear. It was women who were poor, women who
were widows, women who didn't fit neatly into Puritan society. Basically,
(14:15):
the women who weren't protected by a man. Sound familiar
because the scapegoating didn't stop in sixteen ninety two. The
word hysteria literally comes from the Greek word for uterus, histera.
For centuries, women were diagnosed with wandering womb syndrome and
told their bodies were to blame for any outburst, any sadness,
(14:37):
any rebellion.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
So Salem wasn't an isolated panic. It was part of
a long tradition of saying if a woman is too loud,
too sick, too independent, or too different, it must be supernatural,
and the cure punish her, silence her, control her. That
(15:04):
word hysteria is something every woman has heard, whether from
a father, a partner, a boss, or even a doctor.
Don't be hysterical as if a woman expressing discomfort or
pain or even enlightenment is inappropriate. You know, even from
the angle of sobriety, women are pathologized for how they cope. Right,
(15:28):
drink too much, You're a mess, abstain, you're a prude.
Use SSRIs well, you're crazy. It's all just a new
form of policing women's emotional states. If we fail to
maintain a state of equilibrium in our bodies and brains,
you bet there's a derogatory term for that.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Always. And remember this isn't just about history. Think about
poor Britney Spears locked under a Conservative ship for a decade,
or how women's reproduce ductive health is legislated like it's
a Puritan courtroom. Salem may have hanged twenty people, but
this spirit of Salem lives on every time a woman
(16:09):
is punished for not conforming.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Yeah. I would also add that even sobriety and the
way a woman chooses to maintain and practice or sobriety
is up for discussion. The programs created by two middle
aged white dudes in the nineteen thirties are still court
mandated after dus And offered it every recovery center. Women
(16:35):
are villainized for daring to challenge that language and carve
an individual path that doesn't follow the rule book.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
So when we say Salem hysteria, let's be clear, it
wasn't about ghosts and goblins. It was about patriarchy dressed
up in Puritan black, terrified of women who couldn't be controlled.
So let's get into the witch sobriety archetype.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Oh yeah, okay, So after all this, the potions, the
bread trips, the bonnets, the bonfires, what does the witch
archetype actually mean to us?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Now? For me, the witch is still power, She's wisdom.
She's the woman who knows what plants will heal you
and what plants will take you out and refuses to
apologize for either. She's the one who says, I will
not be silent, I will not be small, And if
you're scared of me, maybe that says more about you.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
And isn't that exactly what sobriety is too? Not in
the sense of Puritan repression, but in the sense of clarity,
choosing to see the world without the haze, choosing not
to be controlled by substances, or by patriarchy, or by
anyone else's script for your life. I see the witch
(17:59):
hunts as an attempt to squash feminine intuition. It's so powerful,
and men are terrified of women listening to their intuition
when it comes to what to do with her body,
with her time, with her money. Like I mentioned earlier,
those ancient Greek goddesses, they were worshiped because of the
(18:19):
deep feminine wisdom they held. Woman was Earth and Mother.
She held the sacred knowledge. I would say she still does.
Even the original Hippocratic Oath paid homage to goddesses like
Panacea a healer.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Right, because when you zoom out, witches were never just
about demons and the devil. They were about independence, and
Salem wasn't about magic. It was about punishing women who
wouldn't conform.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
So maybe the lesson isn't to fear witches at all.
Maybe a lesson is to be one to be the
woman with the garden, with the clarity, with the power.
Whether that's a literal potion, or just the courage to
tell the truth in a world that really doesn't want
to hear it. Maybe the sober woman is a modern witch,
(19:14):
the woman who refuses to be sold poison, labeled as
medicine or anything else that will smooth over her instinctive
wild nature. Sobriety clears the cobwebs of the spiritual pipeline.
It puts our intuition on beast mode, and it's much
harder to trig a woman who's tapped into her innate knowing.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
So next time someone calls you a witch, say thank you,
because it means you've got the wisdom of a healer,
the clarity of sobriety, and the kind of power that's
kept women terrifying men for centuries. Kristen, any final thoughts
do you think we would have been accused of witchcraft?
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Oh? I would have been burned in this city square,
and I would have been running my mouth up until
the very end, and I'm pretty sure we would have
been steak mates, My.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Dear, I am really hopeful that we would have worked
out like some kind of spell. We would have had
the ingredients too kind of get ourselves out of it.
So I do. I do have that hope there that
like maybe we would have lived because we would have.
Like Matt, we're both like really into studying and learning things,
So I feel like we could have like pulled out
some man drake root and you know that's my hopeful,
(20:34):
my hopeful take on it.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Yeah, I like that. I like that better than my version,
and I do. I have a lot of faith in us.
I think we would have figured out a way to
wodating ourselves out of that one.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
For real, we should when we do our retreat, we
should have like some ritual night as part of it. Like,
I think that would be a lot of fun. Absolutely,
we're going to do all the witchy stuff we can make,
like a na cocktail, and it can be like a
potion habit, so it has like properties to it, and
then instead of getting you all drunk, will indoctrinate you
(21:10):
into our our witch's circle. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
I think there's something to the power of suggestion too. Like,
you know, if we name this certain drink a you know,
the key to like feminine awakening, and we all sit
around drinking it and chanting something over and over, I'm
pretty sure something's gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
You know.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
I think it's like the energy you put into something
can be just as witchy and effective uh as anything.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Definitely. And also the power of just gathering together like
the the like that you can really get an energy
from a group setting. That's why I wish there was
like a different alternative to like AA meetings that were
more chill, like without the big book, where you could
just like go with sober people, do you know what
I'm saying, and like get that energy going like kind
(22:06):
of like people do in church, but without going to church.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Yeah. Yeah, there's something really powerful about gathering together with
like the same intention and putting the same energy into
the room. I think really powerful things happen when when
you do that.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Definitely, I agree. Do you have any final thoughts for
us on witches and herbs and hysteria and sobriety.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Yeah, I just think it's really a fascinating topic that
I'm probably going to continue diving down. I am really
pleased to see that herbalism and this kind of movement
towards natural healing is making a resurgence, and we're seeing
a lot of you know, functional drinks come onto the
(22:59):
market and non alcoholic space and people really want more
of this in their life. And I think it kind
of speaks to I don't know, maybe this deeper desire to.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Hysteria and Sobriety check it out.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Hold on, my computers is talking to me. It was
like hold on. It was like, ok I know truly
it was I don't even have any of them on
and it was like, Okay, I found this on the
web for hysteria and so Briety, who are you? Who
was that?
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Like, who are you, ma'am? Excuse me.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Speaking of demons? Oh freaking AI, Come on.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Oh shit, they're on to us.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
They really are enough.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yeah, they're like they're too close to figuring this all out.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
I think maybe as a society, like we've gone a
little we've we've swung a little too far in the
direction of mask energy and that's why shit is blowing
up and falling apart and all this horrible things things
are happening. And I think maybe we're all really hungry
for this feminine you know, wisdom, like a return almost
to like the mother to the source, to something like that.
(24:17):
So I don't know, I want to go down this
whole a little bit farther and just kind of pick
it apart, but there's just something to it.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
We should definitely do a follow up after we've done more,
because I know you're doing a lot of research on
this and you're writing some about it for your step sack.
But we should definitely do like a follow up episode,
maybe get some listeners questions, and then we have like
spy season coming up, even though everything is scary all
of the time, like formally, so I got to think
(24:49):
of like some good episodes for that.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Yeah, I would love to hear people's thoughts on this
subject in particular, and then we can kind of answer
for those maybe in a follow up. And then also,
I know you and I have been trying to figure
out a good time to host some kind of retreat.
You know, we could call it a we can call
it a covin. Uh, we can call it whatever you want.
(25:15):
But I think it'd be cool to get some feedback on,
you know, where people are and maybe a good place
on the West coast to do something like that, maybe
this fall or winter, so let us know.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Definitely, I would definitely like to do something like that
in like October or November before people get too slammed
with like holiday stuff. But when we post this episode,
I'll put up like a poll to see where people
would be interested in going, and like what a good
time commitment would be like three days, two days, a
(25:48):
day and a half.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we can work out the details. I
think it's cool. I think, like, you know, we get
sober and we're kind of like, oh, you know, what cool,
interesting spontaneous things are there for me to do? And
I just think this would be a really cool, kind
of different thing where we could get together and talk
about some of these fun spooky things, make some good drinks,
(26:12):
you know, kind of do this but like with.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
A group of other cool chicks. Absolutely, absolutely so, Kristen.
Where can everyone find you?
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Please find me most everywhere. It's Creative sobriety, so Instagram, TikTok,
I write on substack. You can search Creative Sobriety and
Google and pretty much find all of those things, and yeah,
reach out, send me a.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Message and you can find me online at Tanielaskrima or
at Broad's next Door on all of the things. You
can email me at broadsnextdoor dot com or broad'snext Door
at gmail dot com, or you can slide into my DMS.
I always love hearing from all of you. What Kristen
(27:03):
and I know, like more episode suggestions. We do have
a list too. We also have a list of episodes
that people have sent us, and then instead of going
back to that, we just get new ideas and they're like,
let's talk about this. We're very excited.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Just send you like I just send you like a
random YouTube video and I'm like, we got to talk
about this.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
And we still never did that general Rational Curses episode
that I wrote like a script from for like months ago.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Okay, yeah, we got to do that. There's so many
places to go from there too.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, so all right, well, thank you for listening to
another broads next Door and Creative Sobriety episode. A lot
of people ask me why we don't just start our
own podcast, and I think it's mainly because we both
have so much going on that this is just kind
of easier right now to do crossover episodes that we
(27:59):
do post. But that's like one of the main questions
that I get is why don't we start our own podcast?
So if that's something you really want, like, I think
that that's something worth considering.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Yeah, let us know, I mean, yeah, we were both
always doing a million things. But you know, I mean,
we're already doing this anyway. So if you guys would
prefer like a very niched down podcast that's like spooky sober,
you know, like I don't know, maybe we could make
that happen.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Yeah, let us know. And it was good talking to
you all again. We'll talk to you very soon.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Bye bye bye
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