Missing Witches - MW+ Tituba - Do You Know What A Witch Really Is？ with Amy & Risa

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00:00:38.100 slash missingwitches 1.00

00:00:39.780 you aren't being a proper woman 1.00

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00:00:47.580 as we near the end of season six

00:00:51.580 thank you all

00:00:53.120 as always for riding with us

00:00:55.080 Let's get a little experimental.

00:00:58.660 See, Risa and I are both very excited about this witch and the mystery and possibility of her story.

00:01:06.360 But Tituba doesn't really fit our parameters.

00:01:09.840 Or so we thought.

00:01:11.460 In considering Tituba for an episode of the Missing Witches podcast, we came upon another paradox.

00:01:17.820 The kind that our non-binary universe of magic is known and unknown for.

00:01:25.780 Tituba, like magic itself, is both known and unknown.

00:01:30.940 She is perhaps the most famous name of the Salem Witch Trials, but at the same time, very, very little is known about her.

00:01:39.800 She felt both too known and too unknown to dare invite her to this party.

00:01:47.020 But as we make our way through this world of witches, Risa and I are getting more and more comfortable with not knowing.

00:01:54.160 with giving dreams, credence, and myth credibility in our world-building.

00:02:01.300 Feelings are not facts, they say, but witches know that facts and feelings inform our perspectives,

00:02:08.220 feed our perception in equal measure.

00:02:11.640 What happened and how did that make you feel tells me a lot more about you,

00:02:16.460 what you need, and your place in the world than just what happened.

00:02:20.600 And when we get emails from y'all, it's never, that was an interesting piece of biographical information, it's always, here's how that episode made me feel and think about society and my life.

00:02:33.140 Then along comes Paige from Housewitch, recommending Maurice Conde, a Guadalupean author who, 300 years later, found herself drawn into a section of a library containing books on the Salem Witch Trials, and drawn further to a name, Tituba.

00:02:52.560 And on Tituba's behalf, Maryse created the book I, Tituba, what Angela Davis calls Tituba's revenge.

00:03:03.040 Angela wrote,

00:03:03.720 Throughout her life, Tituba recoils before the prospect of exacting revenge for fear of becoming like those who are responsible for her misery.

00:03:13.260 This transcendent revenge, the retelling of a history that is as much mine as it is hers,

00:03:19.660 allows her to save herself without taking on the historical characteristics of the colonizers and slaveholders she detested.

00:03:29.860 Maryse says,

00:03:31.220 Tituba and I lived for a year on the closest of terms.

00:03:35.840 During our endless conversations, she told me things she had confided to nobody else.

00:03:41.480 The conversations went on all the time while I was writing the novel.

00:03:45.760 I had the feeling that Tituba was involved in the writing.

00:03:49.440 Even when I left my pages at night in my study, I believed that she would go look at them

00:03:54.180 and eventually correct what she did not like.

00:03:57.700 I cannot say when we really started conversing, however, all along during my writing of the

00:04:03.080 novel I felt that she was there, that I was addressing her.

00:04:07.520 we've got witches and spirits and channeled writing a society divided by values and fears

00:04:16.900 both real and imagined the echoing of history it's all too juicy so i'm gonna tell you about

00:04:25.440 tutuba what little we know from her recorded testimony some details her spirit whispered

00:04:31.320 to marise conde and then risa is going to join me in the second half of the episode to help us

00:04:35.920 explode and explore the themes that arise, so we can share the juice with each other and with you.

00:04:43.540 Let's start with this. Tituba may have been born in Barbados, or Colombia, or South Africa.

00:04:50.620 She may have been Arawak or Taino. For real, we know almost nothing for sure. And this is why

00:04:57.540 Marise Conde's version is so compelling. She dispenses with the maybes and mights and rights 0.85

00:05:04.160 in the first person, a first-hand account of not only what happened, but how it made Tituba feel.

00:05:12.180 So I'm going to do the same and assume, or pretend, or believe, and share with you Marisa's

00:05:19.020 version of the truth, knowing that while it might not be the truth, it is definitely a truth.

00:05:26.060 Let's go forth boldly and confidently and say that Tituba was born in Barbados, 0.92

00:05:30.860 to an African mother, enslaved and raped on the ship that took her.

00:05:35.840 Tituba's mother, Abina, is hanged for fighting back

00:05:38.720 when the plantation owner who bought her tried to do the same.

00:05:42.200 Tituba, at seven years old, is assumed to have her mother's evil, rebellious blood 0.91

00:05:47.180 and is driven off the plantation by its owner to fend for herself in the woods. 0.51

00:05:51.620 But she is taken in by an old medicine woman who communicates with spirits, Mama Yaya.

00:05:57.180 Tituba notes that the people fear her, but they come from far and wide to seek her help.

00:06:05.120 This confuses Tituba. Why fear the witch? She is a helper and a healer.

00:06:11.060 Mama Yaya teaches Tituba the prayers and rites of her people. 0.51

00:06:15.980 Mama Yaya taught Tituba the ways of sacrifice, blood, and milk, the healing powers of herbs,

00:06:23.740 creating drugs and potions with incantations to strengthen them.

00:06:28.540 Mama Yaya taught Tituba that the dead don't die.

00:06:32.100 They live on when we honor them with offerings and by kneeling when we communicate with them. 0.75

00:06:37.200 Around the same time that Mama Yaga exits the material world, the plantation is sold.

00:06:42.220 The enslaved people who built families and communities on this land are divided up and sold.

00:06:49.520 You'll recall that Tituba wasn't technically listed property,

00:06:52.940 So she was able to sneak off undetected into the night, into the wilderness.

00:06:59.060 And she built herself a little shack and raised animals and was never lonely because Mama Yaya had taught her how to conjure spirits.

00:07:07.300 Tituba could call on Abina and Mama Yaya to be with her at any time.

00:07:11.300 And wouldn't it be nice if that were the end of the story?

00:07:16.000 Tituba lived happily ever after in the woods with her herbs and animals. The end. 0.76

00:07:19.940 instead one day tituba runs into a handsome enslaved man named john indian on a path and

00:07:30.320 he invites her to a dance tituba conjured her mothers and their spirits advised against it

00:07:36.720 but who among us has listened to our mothers when they told us a boy wasn't good for us

00:07:42.980 tituba went to the dance and fell desperately in love with john indian she did take some advice 0.88

00:07:49.540 for Mama Yaya, though, and she scratched John's finger at the dance in an attempt to get a little

00:07:54.620 of his blood that could be used with magic to know his true intentions, to make him love her. 0.95

00:08:01.060 She scratched him and he said, what are you doing, you little witch? Maurice Conde writes Tituba's

00:08:06.940 thoughts in that moment. He was joking, but it made me think, what is a witch? I noticed when

00:08:13.540 he said the word, it was marked with disapproval. But why should that be? Why? Isn't the ability to

00:08:20.460 communicate with the invisible world, to keep constant links with the dead, to care for others

00:08:26.460 and heal, a superior gift of nature that inspires respect, admiration, and gratitude? Consequently,

00:08:34.020 shouldn't the witch, if that's what the person who has this gift is to be called, be cherished

00:08:39.820 and revered rather than feared? And this is, of course, the question that would chase Tituba 0.88

00:08:48.640 throughout her life, trying to do right and being called witch in return. But she has fallen in love

00:08:57.440 with John Indian and makes the decision to marry him. But if they want to live together, Tituba 1.00

00:09:02.260 must give up her life of freedom. You'll recall that John Indian was enslaved, so if he and Tituba

00:09:09.420 were to be a couple, Tituba would have to become a servant to John Indian's master. The slave owner

00:09:15.680 was a widow. She was quite fond of John Indian and not fond of Tituba. But she allowed the marriage 1.00

00:09:23.920 under the condition that Tituba would become Christian, study the Bible, recite it chapter 0.66

00:09:29.880 and verse. But Tituba learning the catechism wasn't enough for old Susanna Endicott. She

00:09:36.400 demanded to know, weren't you raised by a witch named Mama Yaya? Tituba replied, witch? She took 0.98

00:09:44.040 care of people and cured them. Susanna Andacott just smiled, but the kind of smile that has no joy

00:09:50.840 in it. Tituba went to John Indian and told him everything. John stiffened, saying, Governor

00:09:58.120 Dutton had two slaves who had been accused of dealing with Satan burned in the square at

00:10:03.600 Bridgetown. For the whites, that's what being a witch means. Tituba objects in what might be my 0.89

00:10:11.400 favorite line of the whole book. Dealing with Satan? Before setting foot in this house, I didn't

00:10:18.620 know who Satan was. See, Satan was and is an invention. A Molotov cocktail of a weapon that

00:10:28.020 can be thrown at anyone and burst them into flames. Tituba had never heard of Satan until

00:10:34.860 she was introduced to Christianity at Susanna Endicott's behest. But, as Tituba learned,

00:10:41.320 and many of us discover on our own journeys, her logic, her healing, her love was no match for

00:10:48.060 scorn, jealousy, paranoia, and fear. You don't know the whites, John Indian told her, if she

00:10:56.940 manages to get them to believe you're a witch, they'll build a stake and put you on it. So, 0.99

00:11:03.260 Tituba, knowing that if she went to court she wouldn't be listened to or believed,

00:11:08.560 resolved to protect herself and went deep into prayer. And so it passed that Susanna Endicott

00:11:15.400 became deathly ill, but this did not stop her from seeking and finding her revenge.

00:11:21.560 She sold John Indian to a failed colonial businessman, Samuel Parris, 0.59

00:11:26.480 who had plans to leave the island paradise of Barbados and head to Boston,

00:11:31.460 where he would be a preacher and find a parish to pay his wage.

00:11:35.220 Suzanne Endicott knew that Tituba was technically free,

00:11:38.820 but if she wanted to stay with her love, she too would have to board the ship to America.

00:11:44.940 Tituba fears Samuel Parris and, with a compassion that Marius Condé buries deep and wide in Tituba's character,

00:11:53.880 discovers she is not the only one.

00:11:56.020 Tituba sees Samuel's wife, Elizabeth, as another prisoner,

00:12:00.580 as a little girl-child forced to share the life and bed of this terrifying man.

00:12:06.140 And on the pitching, vomitous boat ride north, the two become close.

00:12:12.000 They become each other's comfort and confidants, and they both suffered Samuel's violence and screaming of damnation.

00:12:19.600 Tituba wondered about all this talk of damnation.

00:12:23.580 Perhaps it's because they have done so much harm to their fellow beings,

00:12:27.340 to some because their skin is black, to others because their skin is red, 0.78

00:12:31.380 that they have such a strong feeling of being damned.

00:12:35.880 Tituba became the caregiver and a source of storytelling entertainment,

00:12:40.080 not just for the parish children, but many little girls in the town.

00:12:44.240 This kindness would, of course, be her undoing.

00:12:49.820 She told the girls stories of the old country and tried to make them laugh,

00:12:53.580 bringing what little joy she could to their lives. 0.93

00:12:57.000 They commanded, Tituba, sing us a song! Tituba, tell us a story! 0.89

00:13:01.560 And Tituba complied.

00:13:03.680 One day, though, as Marie's wrote, things turned sour.

00:13:07.300 One of the neighborhood girls asked,

00:13:10.440 Tituba, is it true you know everything?

00:13:13.880 You see everything and can do everything? 1.00

00:13:17.120 You're a witch, then? 0.98

00:13:19.400 Tituba loses her temper, shouting, 0.99

00:13:21.660 Don't use words whose meaning you don't know. 1.00

00:13:25.120 Do you know what a witch really is? 0.55

00:13:28.880 And the girls in unison reply that a witch is someone who has made a pact with the devil.

00:13:33.340 In the winter of 1692, Betty and Abigail, the daughter and niece of Samuel Parris, begin having fits, convulsing and screaming, blaming Tituba and her witchcraft.

00:13:48.180 Between 1692 and 1693, almost 200 people were accused of witchcraft in Salem Village.

00:13:55.820 20 were executed, mostly women.

00:13:58.520 The girls accused Tituba and two other women from the village, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne.

00:14:04.580 Both disenfranchised women who shirked the rules of Puritanism. 1.00

00:14:11.080 One was poor, loud, and unkempt. 0.99

00:14:14.620 The other refused to give up her property when her husband died and instead married her lover.

00:14:20.560 Neither attended church. 0.73

00:14:23.060 Tituba maintains that a witch is a healer and a helper.

00:14:27.580 that she had done no ill to the family or anyone. 0.70

00:14:31.700 But her husband, John Indian, kept up the refrain

00:14:34.240 that he had been telling Tituba since their days in the house of Susanna Endicott.

00:14:39.200 Just survive.

00:14:42.100 The only thing that is important is that we survive.

00:14:47.280 A doctor was brought in to examine the girls,

00:14:49.560 and when no physical evidence of illness was found,

00:14:52.500 the doctor concluded that the only remaining explanation was witchcraft.

00:14:56.840 Tituba was tortured until she confessed and gave testimony in court.

00:15:03.120 The devil, she described, was a tall, thin, white man with long white hair wearing a black cloak.

00:15:10.660 It's funny that no one at the time seemed to notice that Tituba's description of the devil

00:15:14.840 bore a striking resemblance to Samuel Parris himself.

00:15:19.300 He had beaten her and coached her, told her exactly what to say at trial. 0.94

00:15:26.440 He was the devil.

00:15:28.520 When she was brought to trial on May 9th, 1693, for her own crime of witchcraft,

00:15:35.040 the charges against her were immediately dismissed.

00:15:38.080 Tituba's usefulness as a witness had allowed her to outlive the early hysteria.

00:15:44.120 By the time she was brought to trial, people were starting to think the whole panic was a big mistake.

00:15:51.160 The word ignoramus was written on the back of her charges.

00:15:55.460 as though to imply that the woman whose testimony had started the panic 0.99

00:15:59.140 was now considered too stupid to know anything about it. 0.99

00:16:03.120 Or perhaps the word ignoramus referred to her accusers. 0.99

00:16:09.400 Because of her testimony, Tituba survived,

00:16:12.460 but was left to rot in prison for a full year

00:16:15.640 when the Paris family refused to pay her jail fees. 0.78

00:16:20.080 So Tituba was bought for the price of those fees and returned to a life of slavery.

00:16:25.460 The history books don't tell us who bought Tituba, but Maurice Condé does.

00:16:30.260 According to Maurice's version, Tituba is purchased by a Jewish man.

00:16:34.680 They become lovers.

00:16:36.580 Maurice said later,

00:16:37.760 There was a historian teaching at the same college,

00:16:40.300 and I asked her to give me some information about the Puritans of New England. 0.97

00:16:44.440 Because she was Jewish, she influenced me to show how petty the Puritans really were. 0.95

00:16:51.320 How their minds were narrow, full of prejudice. 0.87

00:16:54.620 The Puritans were opposed not only to the blacks, but also to the Jews.

00:16:59.840 They forbade the Jews to settle in the colony of Massachusetts and forced them to go to the more liberal colony of Rhode Island. 0.69

00:17:06.700 I decided to give Tituba a Jewish lover and tried to associate discrimination against the Jews with discrimination against the blacks. 0.69

00:17:14.640 But, witches, we know the devil and difference were not the only things that Puritans feared 0.70

00:17:25.600 Smallpox swept through colonial New England communities regularly

00:17:30.920 Symptoms of the very contagious disease which killed 3 out of 10 infected people included fever and rash

00:17:39.400 Survivors were left with scars, often on their face, or sometimes became blind.

00:17:46.340 Outbreaks of disease frequently heightened witchcraft suspicions,

00:17:51.340 leading neighbors to view one another with distrust and anger,

00:17:56.040 and launching grudges that could last for decades.

00:17:59.240 One very clear example of the relationship between disease and witchcraft suspicions

00:18:04.200 is the accusation of Martha Carrier during the Salem Witch Trials. 0.81

00:18:08.460 Sometime between 1684 and 1689, good wife Carrier and her husband Thomas moved from Belerica to Andover. 0.97

00:18:18.920 Shortly after they arrived, a smallpox outbreak began in the Carrier family, and 13 townspeople died,

00:18:26.360 among them seven members of Carrier's family, her father, two brothers, two nephews, one sister-in-law and one brother-in-law.

00:18:35.340 Many in the community blamed the Carrier family for the outbreak, a grievance that was not

00:18:40.880 soon forgotten.

00:18:42.740 In 1692, when witchcraft accusations began to spread from Salem Village across Essex 0.99

00:18:48.880 County, Martha Carrier was the first person to be accused in Andover. 0.98

00:18:54.480 This innocent woman, who accusers claimed the devil had promised would be the queen 0.89

00:18:59.560 in hell, was hanged on August 19, 1692.

00:19:05.340 In Aitituba, our witch regains her freedom when her Jewish home is burned to the ground by puritanical forces of hate,

00:19:14.060 and she returns at long last to her island home, Barbados, to find her little shack in the woods still standing.

00:19:23.800 She falls in love with a man who is planning a slave revolt, and Tituba is killed when colonists violently shut the revolution down.

00:19:32.020 Maurice Conde said,

00:19:33.720 Writing Tituba was an opportunity to express my feelings about present-day America.

00:19:39.880 I wanted to imply that in terms of narrow-mindedness, hypocrisy, and racism, 0.73

00:19:45.580 little has changed since the days of the Puritans.

00:19:49.860 And I think that's what Risa and I are doing with The Missing Witches Project.

00:19:53.900 These stories don't exist in a vacuum. 0.68

00:19:56.700 They inform our present, shape our culture, and point to the foibles of ignoramai and modern life.

00:20:06.620 So let's have Risa join us now. 1.00

00:20:13.900 Ad break! 1.00

00:20:16.000 It's an ad break, witches! 0.98

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00:22:30.840 so I'm so glad that you could jump in on this Risa because like you know like we don't know

00:22:41.480 anything about Tituba but the story made me think and think about so many different things and so

00:22:50.300 many of them I just wanted to talk to you about and maybe our listeners can chime in and email us

00:22:58.860 with some of your ideas about this too because we're we're creating history with this one yeah

00:23:04.820 i think like i really relate to this idea of channeled history and it it seemed like it came

00:23:11.280 up all season long like there's and then when we did this how an event which you guys will hear the

00:23:18.160 recording of on the 31st um when carol padberg was saying you know there's a reason that people

00:23:24.960 are so fascinated with mushrooms right now like your job right now is to listen because

00:23:31.380 I think as she said it like the winged ones and the tree ones and the ones who are no longer

00:23:36.540 breathing are trying very hard right now to reach you um I feel that I feel that I feel a lot of

00:23:47.680 that in this season that there were people whose stories were telling who were really good at

00:23:52.400 listening and then being a witch is learning about listening in different parts of your body

00:23:57.180 and listening to different parts of the world yeah and I think that's what channeling it just

00:24:04.000 kept coming up yeah yeah how we pay attention what we pay attention to I think there's some

00:24:10.560 element of that in all the stories that we shared this season for sure and maybe there's some

00:24:16.180 element of that in all stories period but specifically I mean Maurice Conde claims that

00:24:24.320 like Tituba was her co-author on on this book I teach you I've never experienced anything like

00:24:34.340 that like certainly sometimes I've been writing about a witch and maybe there was like a small

00:24:39.340 coincidence or like you know some a particular animal showed up in my yard or something like

00:24:44.940 that and I thought you know oh this is this is wonderful we're we're connected but I certainly

00:24:50.080 have never had such a like specific guide in that way I mean once again I've talked about this on

00:25:00.300 the podcast before like I've never had a ghost encounter but many people that I love and trust

00:25:06.760 you know who I have no reason to question their their honesty or their sanity you know have had

00:25:13.340 these encounters I'm not I'm not cynical about it it just has never happened to me so yeah maybe

00:25:20.140 that's part of it you know I haven't had that that ghost muse in the way that some people have

00:25:26.900 yeah I I don't know I I've had moments writing about witches where I felt very strongly like

00:25:36.280 we don't know this or that but I think it's this like and I there's no reason for me to think

00:25:43.300 that it's just the when I look at the evidence and the rhetoric and the language I'm not saying

00:25:48.740 I'm right or that I have access to a spirit co-author but something in me goes I think it's

00:25:57.620 this and I'm going to tell you that because that's what this kind of history is you know we're out

00:26:03.440 we're out beyond the edges of the archives we're we're trying to find stories you know so

00:26:08.040 it matters it's just like you said in the in the beautiful piece you wrote about I teach you by like

00:26:14.360 part of what we're doing is not just these are the facts but these are how I feel about the facts

00:26:19.620 you know yeah yeah and I know you and I have both um had the experience of like doing some writing

00:26:29.000 and then going back to edit and finding a paragraph and being like oh don't remember

00:26:33.540 writing this at all this is this is great stuff you know so i i do have to wonder about that you

00:26:41.700 know as uh as a channeled thing i mean it's it doesn't appear to be coming from me in that

00:26:48.860 moment if i don't even remember constructing it so no i remember my i think it was my dad told

00:26:55.180 me this and it might have been a quote or it might just be something he said he says like a lot of

00:26:58.780 things with my dad are like that i think my dad's a bit of like a uh a pithia a bit of like a

00:27:04.300 channeling spirit sometimes but uh he says uh the difference between a writer and everybody else is

00:27:12.300 that a writer gets up and writes it down and so i've always had that in my head like if you want

00:27:20.640 to be a writer I know you're tired but you hear that phrase chiming now then you gotta get up and

00:27:29.000 write it down you gotta put it in your phone or scrawl it across something like and and that has

00:27:35.780 been like a modus operandi for me it's like I gotta crawl yourself kicking and screaming even

00:27:41.100 if the baby just went to bed if you hear that paragraph chiming in your head that you were

00:27:46.200 looking for that's the conclusion to the piece then either you write it down or you're not the

00:27:51.220 right and like to be a writer you're you're a transcriber you're writing down where does where

00:27:56.920 do these configurations of things even come from you know I feel like the electrical networks in

00:28:03.860 my brain are just sort of like running their fingers through each other quietly in the background

00:28:09.540 and then they're like here you go try this for me there's something definitely about that

00:28:17.640 that liminal space between awake and asleep um and i know i will convince myself oh you'll

00:28:25.100 remember in the morning you'll remember in the morning and now i know better now i'm 44 years

00:28:30.480 old i know i'm not gonna remember in the morning so at this point in my life like i make sure again

00:28:36.500 even like you say like even if it's a point form on my notepad on my phone whatever like

00:28:42.160 yeah that's so funny you said it in exactly the same words that Nadra Niddle said in our

00:28:49.320 interview for the Toni Morrison piece that came out this week and it was so unexpected you know

00:28:54.620 I'm talking to this like activist researcher writer about her research into Toni Morrison

00:29:00.300 and she starts talking about channeled work and like for her you know being half asleep and

00:29:05.720 seeking an answer to something and then it coming and I was like wow this this whole season is about

00:29:12.920 this it's about how we reconnect to this yeah I just keep thinking about mushrooms

00:29:18.440 come back listeners for uh uh Sunday's episode where you'll hear more about mushrooms for sure

00:29:27.820 okay I did have a quote though can I read it for you for this episode because I've been thinking

00:29:32.780 about this piece from entangled life um which is a mushroom book that i know a lot of people

00:29:39.020 are reading this year and i'm reading as well and uh so the scientist who wrote this book

00:29:48.100 okay he says two things that made me think of you one of them i have a quote from the other one i'll

00:29:52.520 just tell you um because it resonates with or chimes with or runs down my cellular networks to

00:30:02.300 something we wrote about in the very first season of Missing Witches with Ipsida where

00:30:08.600 she talks about how magicians and witches were related at some point and that witches sometimes

00:30:19.420 would use sleight of hand or illusion to shock the mind to open the mind to do then let their

00:30:27.680 healing work come into like a more open space or whatever and then this like scientist academic

00:30:34.420 writing about mushrooms and fungi says the exact same thing in the introduction to his book he says

00:30:39.440 he goes to see like a magician a friend do their work and after they leave this couple who'd been

00:30:45.720 at the show leaves the show and goes outside and comes back inside freaking out and they're like

00:30:52.100 the sky is like pink and orange and trippy purples and blues and like we're worried that someone

00:30:59.980 slipped us something they check the drinks you know and make sure it's not true and the magician

00:31:04.000 is like so this actually happens a lot and what happens is that when you've seen something that

00:31:10.280 shakes your expectation of what you're going to see of your reality your brain stops filling in

00:31:18.420 your vision with quick templates for a little while it's trying to save you time all the time

00:31:23.180 so it's like sky is blue don't worry those buildings are like this it fills in sketches

00:31:27.700 but when it's astonished open for a bit and it's like well that magician just bent spoons or

00:31:33.440 whatever read my mind then the brain goes well I can't put in these templates anymore and then

00:31:38.460 suddenly you see the sky in a way you've never fucking seen the sky right which is so perfect 0.75

00:31:44.240 and I can't believe it was in this book. 0.82

00:31:45.760 And then he describes participating in this research trial

00:31:49.760 where academics who are dealing with a problem

00:31:52.860 that they want to try to find a solution to

00:31:54.740 are invited to do LSD with a guide.

00:31:58.580 And, you know, he studies fungi.

00:32:02.760 LSD is originally derived from a fungi.

00:32:05.600 He's like, fine, yeah, why not?

00:32:07.980 So then he says, I lay on the hospital bed with my eyes closed

00:32:11.920 and I wondered what it was like to be a fungus.

00:32:14.240 I found myself underground, surrounded by growing tips surging across one another. 0.97

00:32:19.380 Schools of globular animals grazing, plant roots in their hussle, the wild west of the soil, all those bandits, brigands, loners, crapshooters.

00:32:27.500 The soil was a horizonless external gut.

00:32:30.920 Digestion and salvage everywhere, flocks of bacteria surfing on waves of electrical charge, chemical weather systems, subterranean highways,

00:32:40.080 slimy infective embrace seething intimate contact on all sides as i followed a fungal hypha into a

00:32:47.280 cavernous route i was struck by the sanctuary it offered very few other types of fungi were present

00:32:53.520 certainly no worms or insects there was less bustle and hassle it was a haven i could imagine

00:32:59.360 paying for perhaps that was what the blue flowers offered the fungi in return for the nutritional

00:33:04.960 support. Shelter from the storm. I make no claims about the factual validity of these visions. They

00:33:11.700 are at best plausible and at worst delirious nonsense, not even wrong. Nonetheless, I learned

00:33:15.940 a valuable lesson. The way I had grown accustomed to thinking about fungi involved abstract

00:33:21.260 interactions between organisms that actually looked like the diagrams school teachers drew

00:33:25.920 on the board. Semi-automatic entities that behaved according to an early 90s Game Boy logic.

00:33:31.820 However, the LSD had forced me to admit that I had an imagination, and I now saw fungi differently.

00:33:38.940 I wanted to understand fungi, not by reducing them to ticking, spinning, bleeping mechanisms,

00:33:42.780 as we so often do. Rather, I wanted to let these organisms lure me out of my well-worn patterns of

00:33:47.580 thought, to imagine the possibilities they face, to let them press against the limits of my

00:33:52.780 understanding, to give myself permission to be amazed and confused by their entangled lives.

00:34:01.100 And I keep, I've said this in other episodes this season, I keep thinking about this idea that when we're in the lunar mind, as Monica's show says, or we're in this liminal space, or we're out of the sort of action control part of the brain, with LSD or with ritual, we can sort of release our control for a little bit and hear each other.

00:34:27.700 and maybe part of the ancestors we hear are you know the fungi that we all emerge from that

00:34:34.980 is the reason we have an atmosphere and or you know all of the life that came before us that

00:34:40.820 is buried in the ground i was thinking of so many things as you were talking and reading

00:34:47.220 um one specifically is that this idea of like that bending our minds out of our brains filling

00:34:54.500 in the blanks and one of the most exciting examples of this to me is that like things

00:35:01.460 always can't be done until they are and then many people do them like so many examples in sports I

00:35:09.320 can't remember sports fans email us missingwitches at gmail.com the quadruple jump in in in skating

00:35:17.560 or whatever yeah exactly yeah so many the four minute mile skateboarding it was like the 720

00:35:22.840 and then as soon as one person does it then suddenly like the record's getting broken again

00:35:28.520 and again and again there's there's something that is just like in our minds about our capabilities

00:35:34.780 and these well-worn paths these well-worn paths that like you say you know not necessarily using

00:35:42.240 drugs but just like other methods of changing our perception our perspective and whether it's

00:35:47.520 sleight of hand or just listening differently paying attention in different ways and we have

00:35:55.740 to resist the ways that that's happening in damaging and controlling these all around this 0.98

00:36:00.520 you know that's what gaslighting is it's a fucking and i've i've experienced it you know it's like 0.99

00:36:05.780 it's a fucking spell that it tells you reality is one way i remember sitting on the edge of my bed 0.99

00:36:12.060 and all I could think was I feel like a robot that's been turned off I feel like a machine 0.99

00:36:18.160 that's been turned off like I couldn't act I was totally totally paralyzed when I was at

00:36:23.360 my peak of being controlled by another person distorting reality

00:36:27.080 so I have complete understanding what a spell is because I was under one from not like not to

00:36:35.340 what I don't know what the word magic means but I was under one you know and it wasn't magic it

00:36:40.320 was just manipulation it was power of words was distorting reality yeah and i mean that that

00:36:47.280 manipulation for better for worse is what magic is right yeah yeah and that's what we talk about

00:36:53.720 consent and care yeah and i mean that's sort of this whole thing with you know being fed a reality

00:37:05.760 and being forced to accept it you know we find it also uh you know in our lives it specifically in

00:37:12.960 in ayatituba where we have this notion of what it means to be a witch and then we have other people

00:37:19.240 telling us no it means this it's it's bad it's wrong it's evil it's ugly it's you know unlovable

00:37:26.560 um and and these are the messages that we contend with and and once again for a lot of people those

00:37:32.120 are informing their reality their their decision making in terms of you know coming out of the

00:37:37.420 broom closet with their friends and family um there are so many ways that these there's a

00:37:46.700 in conversation with this one friend of mine I'm always saying like the laws of man are not the

00:37:50.920 laws of physics we can break them we can break them and chances are like nothing bad is gonna

00:37:58.640 happen you know yeah obviously there's like you know obvious obvious stuff like hurting people

00:38:07.120 and that kind of thing that's off the table in terms of rule breaking some rules are rules for

00:38:12.440 a reason but the stuff a bit like this is how you have to present yourself right yeah this is what

00:38:24.000 healing means yeah so much stuff and i so i would tell the story about it but i i i i'll i'll i'll

00:38:34.460 report back but i get more other people's memories of this but it was so funny that we were talking

00:38:40.140 about it and i was talking to some of my friends my circle of women friends that i've known since

00:38:47.800 grade seven since the beginning of high school here in quebec and they were like yeah well we've

00:38:53.480 we've read what it's about like what are you talking about we read what it's about it's like

00:38:57.960 yeah we've read it in french class grade nine you did a presentation on it where you all do a seance

00:39:06.220 we did a seance in our private catholic girl school 200 year old school full of stories of

00:39:15.520 hauntings turned out the lights like candles all the little girls in their uniforms the french

00:39:20.800 teacher like perfect exactly yeah yeah we read the we read the original French and we did we

00:39:31.960 summoned Tituba I don't remember I remember that I remember the sort of feeling of like a windy day

00:39:38.020 in the dark and I remember what classroom it was in and that's all I remember I didn't even remember

00:39:42.520 read that book but they remembered so perhaps you were you were um entranced and perhaps this is why

00:39:51.300 you don't remember do they remember fainted a lot at that time and had a lot of strange stories to

00:40:00.060 yeah i don't know tituba yeah so many mysteries like we we literally don't know anything there

00:40:12.420 there's another book that's called like tituba or the reluctant witch and it's just like maybe

00:40:21.060 it's this maybe it's this maybe and it's so well researched but it's it's impenetrable

00:40:26.020 because everything is like maybe it happened like this and maybe it was this

00:40:29.860 and maybe it was this and you're just like you haven't helped me at all

00:40:33.600 right how how how fascinating right that at the core of this like most like iconic story of witch

00:40:45.200 hunt there's this missing indigenous healer yeah yeah she disappeared

00:40:56.160 into the ether as it were you know and and i think that's part part of the wonderful mystery

00:41:05.480 of her is that you know she belongs to anyone not white um anyone can sort of imagine

00:41:13.000 imagine that they are you know her descendant and that again is sort of the uncarved block

00:41:19.720 of our our spiritual ancestors you know maybe maybe it's nicer and maybe that is part of

00:41:27.940 part of her legacy is is that it's sometimes it's nicer not to know you know yeah that's like um

00:41:35.820 marina mcgoire was saying in that interview those those lives that exist out beyond the

00:41:41.700 edges of the archives they can't be contained by them archives can just be these lists of death

00:41:48.500 you know or lists of people property bought and sold but some people would just be on the edges

00:41:55.060 or you know like in uh like nadra was saying in in tony morrison's story and

00:42:01.460 and in this like well-believed mythology that there were of the hundreds of thousands of people

00:42:08.300 that didn't make it on the boats between Africa and the United States like some of those people

00:42:16.220 just flew away yeah those people just just chose not to come some of those people flew away you 1.00

00:42:22.540 know they're out beyond the edges of the archives yeah I think I think Aitituba is a is a witch for 0.95

00:42:28.460 those stories for sure and so very much a witch for this this Samhain time you know that we're

00:42:34.060 that we're close to now we're approaching and i think it's just about listening right like that's

00:42:41.720 the message i keep getting right now it's like be still stop controlling everything hold some dirt

00:42:47.920 listen for a little bit i also got like a major tickled pink thrill um when i was reading that

00:42:59.380 that Angela Davis introduction when she called she called it Tituba's revenge yeah I got so

00:43:06.940 I got so tickled you know we talk a lot about you know this project and how we're we're honoring

00:43:12.820 these these witches and their stories and our stories and untold stories but hadn't really

00:43:21.220 framed it in my mind as like an act of vengeance and now I'm like really excited about adding that

00:43:29.240 sort of aspect to to the idea you know like because again i don't think there's anybody

00:43:38.560 that we have profiled living or dead you know contemporary or historical who wasn't

00:43:44.340 marginalized who didn't have reason to take revenge on society in some way or another and i

00:43:52.840 and i love you know angela davis i think called it like a transcendent revenge you know to to

00:43:59.000 didn't want to be

00:44:01.320 horrible like

00:44:03.100 the people that she met

00:44:05.120 and so she did it this way

00:44:07.620 you know

00:44:08.700 but you have to

00:44:10.900 believe in order to not be

00:44:13.440 like

00:44:13.880 vengeful in this lifetime

00:44:17.100 I guess you have to believe that there is

00:44:19.200 like a transcendent opportunity

00:44:21.040 to believe in that you have to believe that

00:44:23.400 you know you're capable of legacy

00:44:25.120 after your material

00:44:27.520 life has ended

00:44:28.660 which again is like an interesting notion at this time of year confronting our own mortality

00:44:36.380 and trying to accept a notion of immortality you know for me immortality is harder to accept

00:44:43.580 than mortality I think I'm working on it

00:44:47.560 did you ever imagine your own funeral like when you were when you were four

00:44:53.740 out did you ever read someone who did that oh absolutely oh my god I'm morbid I'm I was a

00:45:02.060 morbid I wasn't sullen but I was morbid for sure I mean are there people who haven't imagined their

00:45:08.740 own funeral for sure I've been telling my telling my friends like this is the song I want played at

00:45:13.640 my funeral for example like I've had that stuff set since I was like 15 yeah I mean I might change

00:45:22.360 at some point but I think it's like

00:45:23.720 it's a solid choice

00:45:25.940 I think mine's from the same album

00:45:27.560 yeah

00:45:28.940 yeah wow

00:45:30.840 thanks for all the

00:45:33.220 you wouldn't think of it as a funeral dirges

00:45:36.200 album

00:45:36.720 now you will

00:45:38.620 you're welcome everyone

00:45:40.540 oh

00:45:45.300 what do we make

00:45:48.040 of the fact that

00:45:49.280 it was

00:45:51.320 in marise conde is telling i i should preface i guess i guess um

00:45:57.640 why was it always love that got tituba into trouble you know why did marise choose to tell

00:46:08.860 it this way and what do we think about the fact that her compassionate acts got her into trouble

00:46:18.260 and what saved her life was that one you know lie of self-preservation

00:46:24.840 what do what do we make of that in our own lives how do we

00:46:32.020 think

00:46:35.200 when we know a story like this where compassion and love was the

00:46:43.560 was

00:46:45.780 the bringer of harm

00:46:49.220 and the lie was the

00:46:51.520 release into freedom

00:46:53.380 you know I don't know

00:46:59.720 but I

00:47:00.440 I am a firm

00:47:03.580 believer

00:47:05.420 in the setting

00:47:09.240 of boundaries

00:47:10.540 you know in the

00:47:13.540 the carving out a space for yourself, in taking what you need, not waiting for it to be given,

00:47:30.180 in not pouring all of yourself out until you disappear, I just—I believe in cutting

00:47:42.240 people off who are cruel to you even if you might have thought you all done something

00:47:48.400 i believe in you know i believe in protecting your power and your energy

00:47:56.400 and i think it's interesting that a story like that about

00:48:02.720 you know we it reminds me of other stories we've told about which is selling or looking for

00:48:12.240 a potion for good love, you know, in a time when that would guarantee you safety, you

00:48:18.160 know, and I do think for like marginalized, sold, endangered people, women, queer people

00:48:27.660 that like when you've been like fucked over and brutalized, like there's this just a most

00:48:34.740 profound need for safety and so love seems like it can offer that, you know, you look 0.54

00:48:40.840 like we look for like a hand that can pull us out but i think that's that can be dangerous you know

00:48:49.160 like we to be really careful about whose hands we trust and who we trust with our

00:48:54.440 bodies and selves and our power and draw firm boundaries and be really careful who we let in

00:49:03.240 love seems to be this like great rationalizer of

00:49:10.440 bonkers choices you know like if you say like oh he did this and that it's like oh why did he do

00:49:19.860 that and he's like oh he met a girl and everyone's like oh okay you know it's just like we sort of

00:49:25.000 expect ourselves and each other to do crazy things for love but that's sort of the only

00:49:32.980 acceptable

00:49:33.800 and is it just because like we don't understand love so we can't explain it and when love is the

00:49:44.820 explanation we just can't take it any further than that yeah or we recognize in ourselves that like

00:49:52.340 that feeling of like love or infatuation possible safety or possible

00:50:00.640 meeting this whatever that that throws us for a loop but it like it upturns our reality and so

00:50:09.540 I think that it also makes us more vulnerable you know we're like this person is astonishing

00:50:16.000 and beautiful and they like me and so everything I thought about me was wrong and everything I

00:50:22.120 thought about the world is brand new you know that can be like I think that can be a really

00:50:28.800 powerful place of magic I mean magic is about like you know drawing in building up your energy

00:50:34.160 building up your power but first make making a circle of safety around you drawing and building

00:50:39.660 up your energy your power and focusing your will you know and and learning what your will really

00:50:45.500 is so that you can focus it and love is definitely and sex is definitely a way of building up that 0.96

00:50:52.000 fucking energy and that power you know and and can be a wild way of channeling it but 0.97

00:50:58.780 i think you know using sex for world changing magic is totally possible but 0.99

00:51:05.740 i think it's also a way that we can get real badly hurt so we ought to be careful

00:51:09.560 yeah i you know my thinking every everything is a neutral tool and it's not until it's in

00:51:16.580 our hands that it's you know going to be used for good or for bad and i let's let's go back to the

00:51:25.280 title of this episode and i i think both of our answer is no but let's maybe expand on the no um

00:51:34.460 do you know what a witch really is no no i mean i you know i don't know i don't i don't want to

00:51:49.140 give one definition for that i refuse to give i refuse to give a definition for that people keep

00:51:54.300 asking me people in my family so do you identify as a witch what does that mean for you you know

00:51:59.980 i'll talk your ear off about it because that's what i do but um i don't i don't want a boundary

00:52:07.560 set around that particular word i like i like donna harroway's idea that it matters what thoughts

00:52:16.120 we use to think other thoughts and what stories we use to build worlds and i like the word which

00:52:22.760 and i want to use it to build worlds with and tell stories with but i don't want it to be

00:52:29.260 yeah someone came up with this question in one of our other recent conversations about

00:52:37.740 you know incorporating people who don't self-identify you know non-like-minded

00:52:42.520 and i think you know for me my the number one thing that i think of is just like not being a 0.99

00:52:48.160 fucking gatekeeper not being like oh you like this band named 10 of the records like fuck off 0.99

00:52:54.260 me bullshit like no you know I don't have the tarot memorized yes I'm a professional witch 1.00

00:53:00.500 I don't have the tarot memorized I'm sorry listeners I understand if that I lack credibility 0.98

00:53:07.380 now but like I'm just just not a good memorizer you know or or whatever it is like I think that

00:53:15.460 do you know what a witch really is is was one of the standout lines to me in the book because

00:53:22.420 it's a question mark you know it's not an exclamation point it's a question mark and i

00:53:27.040 think that that's the investigation right like i think i i know more than before we started this

00:53:34.420 project but also it's that sort of like you know the expanded version of the well i used to think

00:53:43.320 that i understood what was in the well and now i understand that it's an ocean of an infinite ocean

00:53:49.040 you know oh totally i go back to um pamela grossman's uh show me your ideas about witches

00:53:58.880 and i'll show you your ideas about women yeah that's core to my definition of what a witch is

00:54:04.800 yeah how the do you think about women how do you think about yourself how do you think about women

00:54:10.480 tell you how you think about witches and vice versa and i go back to ipsy to roy check reverdy

00:54:16.560 every strong woman is a witch and all are hunting those are core to my definition and I look at my

00:54:23.360 own life I'm like you know I I don't need that word all the time I'm very comfortable slipping 0.83

00:54:29.240 in and out of that hat that word any identity I I'm comfortable slipping in and out of most spaces

00:54:37.160 but I know I've always I've always been able to connect with people and see a moment of magic

00:54:52.280 emerge between us and then do things that I now and have always considered spell or ritual

00:55:00.760 that can make a moment heightened and like special and otherworldly and like where things

00:55:10.960 can come in you know I remember a friend being like you just make these days like what and

00:55:17.000 because we would you know and it's not just me I know women I know people who do that who can take

00:55:21.500 a day who can take a moment and suddenly it's like the leaves are sparkling and you're drawing

00:55:29.040 with chalk and you've made like some sort of special concoction and like you just are willing

00:55:34.580 to in that moment be full of joy and potential and that to me is core to my definition which

00:55:41.900 and which as I've known because they'll look at the present and be like right now this thing can

00:55:47.020 be you know and that's been like core to my friendship with you it's funny when you were

00:55:51.160 talking about yeah that you don't you don't believe in gatekeeping that is so core to my

00:55:56.480 relationship with you because if listeners if you can see Amy right now she's got like a wall

00:56:00.960 of records behind her you can imagine the first times we hung out you know she's just like you

00:56:06.860 know Amy's sort of a powerful artist presence I am what I am but I am in my own right and

00:56:13.840 when I walked into her space and you know we're playing music together we're hanging out and

00:56:18.180 she's asking me if I know this song or that song I don't know it I'm like apologizing and she's 0.97

00:56:23.320 like oh fuck I'm too fucking old to think that I know all the music or that you should 0.99

00:56:28.800 she's like I'm too old I don't give a fuck if you haven't heard a song I get to tell you this 0.99

00:56:35.820 song tell me your songs it's infinite like and everything exploded open and yeah yeah I remember 0.97

00:56:43.520 having those feelings when I was like 14 or 15 and and like there was like maybe a six month

00:56:49.520 period in my life where I would pretend to know something that I didn't know

00:56:53.320 and then I was like well I mean now I just I first of all it's hard and I'm uncomfortable

00:57:02.160 because I'm having like weaving a web of lies with something I don't know that's not fair I

00:57:08.700 can't wait to do that you know nobody got time for that I'm not learning about the thing if I

00:57:14.880 had just said no tell me about it then you know again we could have engaged and and here's the

00:57:20.940 real thing you can't have heard all the songs you can't just can't i don't care how wicked

00:57:29.960 your record collection is or how much spotify premium you can't it is impossible so i mean

00:57:40.780 once again the idea of gatekeeping for someone who is unable to do the impossible seems like a

00:57:47.380 real waste of time to me you keep a lot of people out that way yeah so but that's so boring yeah

00:57:55.540 and magic too I mean I think a lot of people like rules they like things to be black and white

00:58:01.000 because they need to know what that what they are doing is right and if you can tell them it's this

00:58:07.180 and it's that and you know it's the same thing in in other religions as it is you know in witchcraft

00:58:13.400 or in the occult or in magic where and and some people get real mad you know they're like i spent

00:58:20.100 years studying this and it's kind of like how dare you waltz in here you know with your with

00:58:27.460 your experimental improvisational ideas and i don't know to me there's room for both i like

00:58:34.360 i like some from colony and some from colony i like to have have like a a context for what i'm

00:58:42.180 doing you know uh yeah historical and social context so i understand the words that i'm using

00:58:49.160 or the the tools that i'm using or you know i think both of us were very we're very like oh

00:58:57.440 you know you you get into witchcraft especially when maybe when you're younger but maybe not

00:59:01.980 and you get really into like the the accoutrements you know the the this and the that for sure I have

00:59:08.460 like a mortar and pestle with like a pentagram engraved on it and probably like some unethically

00:59:15.920 mined crystals in my collection because you don't know and and you're not you're just excited and

00:59:21.460 you're not thinking about it so again I I like to be have a lot of joie de vivre in my magic but

00:59:27.660 it definitely has to be rooted in that listening like the paying attention you know that that you

00:59:34.540 specifically have been talking about tonight that like yeah very rooted i think paying of attention

00:59:39.740 rooted listening and and learning like i think there's a difference between being like

00:59:45.300 you know you can't come in here unless you already know everything

00:59:50.980 versus like you know to play with us it's important to have an attitude of listening

00:59:59.520 and learning you know i think those are different kinds of of gatekeeping yeah i mean to me it's

01:00:09.520 just it's it's apparent that there are an infinite you know ways of knowing and infinite forms of

01:00:18.240 intellect and infinite things again you know magic the universe molecules mushrooms that you can't

01:00:26.920 have heard all the songs you know whether the songs if you think of them as you know science

01:00:32.980 scientific you know journals or or you know this study or that you know author thinker thought

01:00:40.320 you know maker whatever you can't know everything so the idea of closing the door to anyone

01:00:47.020 and once again like anyone who's not like actively bringing harm or you know trolling

01:00:56.320 with harm we have to draw the line somewhere you know you were talking about boundaries

01:01:01.140 you know trolling with harm is a good place to close the gate but you know beyond that

01:01:08.100 everybody has something literally everyone has something to teach me you know yeah

01:01:13.360 and that that's what's so been so great about our patreon coven is that you and i are sort of the

01:01:19.380 leaders by default but like everyone everyone who comes has is so fascinating to me and i'm like

01:01:30.140 every single person has like their own thing or their own niche or their own

01:01:35.440 value system or way of looking at the world or at this idea or and it just like it's like heart

01:01:44.360 and soul and mind and it just yeah they are in it they are living it there there's so much wisdom

01:01:51.900 and experience there you know people out in the woods building their own houses people you know

01:01:57.280 crafting a path from very traditional religion into a witchcraft that feels more at home to them

01:02:03.600 i mean yeah people trying to figure out how to be activists in a way that feels authentic i mean

01:02:10.160 people are in and so open you know i want to go back to this this piece this piece from your

01:02:19.040 piece about it and maybe this could be um our closing rant or not but this idea this crazy

01:02:27.660 idea this this interesting fact that like the witch hunts overlap or like emerge directly from

01:02:38.540 um pandemic fear yes this was like one of those the mark twain quote like history doesn't repeat

01:02:48.980 itself but it it rhymes i think it was mark twain's history doesn't repeat but it rhymes

01:02:54.140 i was like interesting i heard a rhyme in that for sure yeah

01:03:03.360 yeah so the origin of the smallpox vaccine is it you know the smallpox vaccine is it like kind of

01:03:13.920 emerged and came to be known was uh like a slave holder being taught a practice from a slave

01:03:21.640 from what they think now is like guinea i think uh who had like a long who taught a

01:03:28.840 slaveholder like a long-standing practice of taking the smallpox lesions taking the

01:03:34.680 material from them and introducing them in like pricking people with it so that they 0.91

01:03:40.620 would get hopefully a mild version of smallpox and then they would be safe from it like that's

01:03:45.800 where our idea of vaccines comes from it is this like healer knowledge from a brutalized and

01:03:55.160 enslaved culture which is super fascinating and then there's this there's this history over and

01:04:00.880 over and over again of like forcibly vaccinating communities of color without telling them like

01:04:06.920 there's this like tension around race but I didn't know that piece about the witch hunt

01:04:16.460 starting kind of directly from what's her name or something who infected people with smallpox and

01:04:25.000 then was accused of being rich which it makes sense you know like you're terrified and you got

01:04:30.560 sick you know they got sick and so you blame supernatural elements or something yeah but i

01:04:40.920 mean this to me this is the question it's like um were they afraid that she was the devil or were

01:04:48.580 they did they just see an opportunity to take revenge on the person that they thought had made

01:04:54.940 their village sick and so they used again like whatever brick was around to throw and that's

01:05:02.040 I don't know but again like the in this rhyme of our contemporary society like

01:05:07.980 is this what we're doing is like is this just the devil and so we're you know

01:05:15.880 so Sylvia Frederici talks about this too about this witch hunt notionally being a way to separate

01:05:27.240 people being a way to make you not trust your neighbor because they could be a witch and again

01:05:35.200 this is like we we live in pandemic times like we're we're coming up on two years almost in this

01:05:41.480 like and that's it's that same feeling of like you feel like you can't trust anybody and anybody

01:05:49.580 could be devil worshiping and so you need to make them the enemy you need to you need to make whoever

01:05:59.560 is not doesn't have your same values or whoever you're afraid of you know becomes this this

01:06:08.940 satan this boogeyman uh you know of an enemy and it's amazing to me how fear always seems to turn

01:06:19.540 to rage and hate that that's something that i am still trying to wrap my head around you know

01:06:28.220 it's so it's so guttural i mean i i have felt that too like in people i'm close with

01:06:35.720 or have been close with deciding that they can't be vaccinated that their their fear is too strong

01:06:43.800 and my initial reaction and my long-term reaction of just how could you put us at risk like how

01:06:53.160 could you put our community at risk yeah how could you put how could you how could you how 0.93

01:06:59.080 fucking could you you know and i felt the rage like i and the sense of betrayal and i felt the 0.99

01:07:04.280 fear thing or thing for sure i i saw a post that i think was the the crux of it you know this man 0.99

01:07:13.680 posted um my distrust of government is stronger than my love of people basically and you know 0.55

01:07:24.940 i that just makes me so fucking sad because that that to me like y'all y'all know me 0.69

01:07:33.440 i'm like an 80s punk i don't trust the government i don't fucking trust 0.99

01:07:39.040 pharmaceutical companies i don't trust none of y'all motherfuckers 0.99

01:07:42.660 but my distrust of these things is not as strong as my desire to do what i can 0.98

01:07:52.140 even in the off chance that you know it's not a miracle you know obviously like

01:07:59.880 right it's not stronger than that it's just not yeah and just i mean following the researchers

01:08:10.620 and the story of the scientists women scientists people of color all around the world who worked

01:08:19.220 to develop that vaccine i mean i i went followed them on twitter like i found the individual people

01:08:26.160 I found the stories the sort of history as it was being written like I was not somebody who

01:08:31.000 just believed wholeheartedly because I I saw it on the news that it was what I should do you know

01:08:37.340 like I'm not somebody who's comfortable doing what the prime minister tells me to do on the news but

01:08:42.040 like I nerd out and and and I watched what from my point of view was the greatest collaboration

01:08:53.260 that humanity has ever done you know it was the the fastest you know people were dying and they

01:09:00.840 saw how rapidly this could get out of control and so borders were erased money was no issue

01:09:09.240 everybody knew like the economy can't survive if this thing gets out of control and so

01:09:15.160 it was the biggest international open source to a degree collaboration that we've ever done and

01:09:22.640 that's why this research that started 10 years ago after SARS and planning and they they had a

01:09:29.740 fairly good idea of what coronavirus would be like and how they would need to get it and when

01:09:33.240 they got the call it was now it was it was a spectacular act of collaboration to me it's like 1.00

01:09:38.960 that's beyond hopeful sign me up and then I see the old people lining up to get the vaccine after

01:09:45.200 they've been scared in their homes for a year and I'm like this is a beautiful thing we're doing 1.00

01:09:50.480 together you know this is a great demon we're facing together so but at the same time I have

01:10:00.400 close friends now who don't just crying saying I feel like I'm having a breakdown but it doesn't

01:10:06.700 I can't do it I don't know why I can't do it I just can't do it and they're increasingly isolated

01:10:14.380 it and i mean i'm not that there for them either because i'm scared but i'm trying to have a heart

01:10:22.600 that's open to that perspective too you know smart anarchist punk women who are like i just i'm

01:10:33.240 scared so i don't know and i mean this this is a rambly tirade about it this is this is the thing

01:10:40.640 And this is why, you know, we call ourselves anti-capitalist and, you know, we call ourselves

01:10:50.120 resistors. It's because we know, you know, we don't have the luxury of not knowing

01:11:00.280 how messed up the system is. You know, we know. We know. And capitalism has created this

01:11:10.640 society and like ridden and driven people so hard that they're literally like i'm i i can't do

01:11:19.860 anything i can't take this thing because that's the level of distrust that you've created in our

01:11:25.980 relationship like my relationship with capitalism you know that's the level of distrust that our

01:11:32.140 society has created that people are like risking their relationships risking their jobs because

01:11:37.980 they don't trust you that much you being the government not you recently but yeah i mean

01:11:45.360 that's crazy you know to be like aware that like

01:11:48.740 that we've been we've been given enough evidence that like the system doesn't necessarily have our

01:11:58.300 backs and then it's the boy who cried wolf right but the opposite it's like the system that cried

01:12:04.740 candy you know you're like i don't know these other times it was it was a wolf it wasn't candy

01:12:12.360 and now the candy is here and we're like i don't know i don't know it was a wolf last time i don't

01:12:18.040 know what you're talking about because it's total chaos all the time so i don't know if i want your 0.98

01:12:21.640 fucking candy and even candy while lighting my house on fire why would i take that you know 0.97

01:12:30.320 So again, like, yeah, I, I, but that's why to me, like, it just, it makes me sad above anything. 0.98

01:12:39.620 you know i mean i think for me it's important to remember

01:12:48.100 to not not disappear the individual labor and care in the great pressure and wash and pressure wash

01:13:05.860 of capitalism like there there are individual scientists we talk about big pharma and so we

01:13:13.140 erase these individual vaccine researchers who were working these insane hours trying to save

01:13:22.180 their parents too you know we erase the people and that is a mistake because every one of those

01:13:28.660 people is an opportunity for change and i think we erase when we erase each other that's

01:13:33.700 that's a bad emergent energy that's a bad spell yeah i mean that that i mean to tie it back in

01:13:42.060 and maybe this will be the bow that ties the whole thing together is this like we're creating devils

01:13:48.340 you know we are taking like human phenomenon and just making devils out of them because then you

01:13:56.000 can just put well the devil made me do it or he's like that because the devil or she's like that

01:14:00.540 you know insert whether you can define devil however you want but in this rhyming of history

01:14:06.360 you know we can't just create great mythical beasts to take on all the burden of our critical

01:14:13.780 thinking no matter which side we're on you know that's it that's it yeah

01:14:20.660 don't create mythical beasts to take on the burden of your critical thinking

01:14:25.840 i'm glad that we're recording this because that means i don't have to write it down

01:14:37.300 but yeah i mean whether whether we're witch hunting in the 1600s or whether we're 0.95

01:14:42.660 you know having rage outs in fucking walmart 0.93

01:14:48.260 in 2021 like just don't create some mythical beast to take on the burden of your critical thinking 0.98

01:14:59.620 we love you listeners we love you so much thank you for joining all this on this wild wild wild

01:15:09.560 ride we love you so much please email us like everything that we say it ends in a question

01:15:16.060 mark so if you have answers always let us know at missingwitches at gmail.com oh and i will make

01:15:22.660 a one more plug for this we coming up later this year we will do an episode where we just

01:15:29.480 read and respond to listener email we won't share anybody's real names but we've never done that

01:15:35.760 we've gotten incredible letters some of them we haven't answered because they were too emotional

01:15:41.300 or because we were too swallowed by life but we're going to dig through find some of the ones that

01:15:47.920 really shook us and share them with you guys so between now and then send us your letters and

01:15:52.180 we love you thanks for joining us as always 0.85

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Missing Witches - October 27, 2021

MW+ Tituba - Do You Know What A Witch Really Is？ with Amy & Risa

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