00:00:59.100In her writing, journalism, filmmaking, and creative direction work, she delves into narrative art, music, counterculture, one of my favorite subjects, magic, another one of my favorite subjects, and psychedelica, yet another one of my favorite subjects.
00:01:13.920And, of course, she is also the editor of the Library of Esoterica series.
00:01:20.220The newest volume is Spirit Worlds, featuring essays, interviews, and over 400 images from cave paintings to contemporary works of channeled art.
00:01:30.660Spirit Worlds steps through the darkened doorways
00:01:34.920And into the labyrinths that lead to the mysterious
00:01:59.920oh so good to be here thank you for having me i'm so thrilled to have you here and y'all
00:02:08.580jessica is sitting amongst the trees with this gorgeous beam of light shining down it's it's
00:02:16.940perfect um obviously i'm a fan but before we dive into the work proper um what do you want
00:02:26.180our listeners to know about you like who are you today in this moment who am I today uh I am
00:02:36.640I feel like I am lucky enough to be sort of uh I would say at a cumulative apex point I mean
00:02:49.860hopefully not the the top of the mountain still climbing but um uh sort of very grateful to be at
00:03:00.660a point in my career where i can be uh building on all the experiences i've had from the past
00:03:07.080in order to shepherd these volumes and sacred sites is out now and spirit worlds which is
00:03:14.280Sacrifice is actually five and Spirit Worlds is six and Spirit Worlds is just arriving in the States.
00:03:20.460You have, as I was saying, in advance, a copy before I have a copy.
00:03:25.380So, but yeah, I'm very grateful to kind of be taking all of my experience as a writer and culture journalist and director and be sort of creating a platform and a sort of vessels for all of these, not only ideas and practices, but incredible artists, past and present.
00:03:54.920scholars so i always say these books are very much um they are a living breathing and evolving
00:04:02.520community and so i am just sitting at a point of just gratitude really um that i that i have the
00:04:12.280honor of um yeah helping to manifest these books i love that you use the word shepherd
00:04:20.000like it's not so much because again these you you're curating these you're obviously not creating
00:04:27.540400 different paintings and so on yeah but this idea of the shepherd you're like herding these
00:04:33.480ideas together and herding these these images together and these essays i love that shepherding
00:04:39.800i think i might replace the word curating with the word shepherding you didn't specifically say
00:04:45.520so I have to know, like, do you identify as a witch? Do you use other vocab? Yes.
00:04:53.700So tell me about, tell me about that. Like, do you feel like you were born a witch? Do you feel0.73
00:04:58.460like you became a witch? How did that journey, what did that journey look like for you?
00:05:02.680I, I feel like we are all sort of born witches, right? We are all born sort of connected to
00:05:11.940The sort of overarching sort of conceptual idea of what that word means in terms of having a very deep connection to our own intuition, to the sort of other realms in nature, into earth.
00:05:36.780I grew up in Western Massachusetts, deep in the woods, spent a lot of time alone. I was an only child until I was about nine, spent a lot of time talking to the trees and to the fairies and was always very fascinated by nature and by music and art.
00:06:03.120And, you know, I think I got my first tarot deck when I was about 11, 12, and was always sort of fascinated by this idea of being able to tap into your own intuition for answers, and also this idea of the alchemy of art of creation as magic.
00:06:28.860And so that's something that I've really kind of held on to throughout my life and have gone back to again and again.
00:06:37.940And to me, all the ideas and concepts that we talk about in the Library of Esoterica, to me, are these sort of touchstones, transformative tools to tap into your own voice, your own intuition, and be able to kind of overcome fear and blocks and obstacles in order to offer your own voice to the world, your own creativity to the world.
00:07:03.780um and that is a reason why they've been hidden and sublimated and made scary or obtuse or
00:07:11.480secret um is because they are these these ways in um that empower the person themselves to be
00:07:21.080able to express who they really are in the world which we need now more than ever so absolutely
00:07:27.460and and it is kind of like intuition to me is like counter to fascism counter to capitalism where
00:07:37.180we are looking inside of ourselves for answers instead of being told what we need to buy to be
00:07:42.820happy how we need to behave to like be legitimate humans and witchcraft runs counter to that which0.56
00:07:51.740I mean, as you said, you became a witch. I guess I'll use scare quotes here. Became, because as you said, it was kind of all is. Because you were into trees and fairies and art and music and literature and all of these things can be encompassed under that umbrella of witchcraft.
00:08:17.000Which to me is why I self-identify as witch or part of it anyway, because it's such a nebulous label. I'm not like super into labeling myself. But the label of witch is so expansive that it almost doesn't feel like a label at all.
00:08:36.140yeah it's almost like a genre right it's like punk or goth or I mean you know I mean I think
00:08:44.040I think I'm saying that as a sort of general idea of course there are you know very dedicated
00:08:50.220witches who practice a specific dogma but to me the way that I identify with that term
00:08:59.320And I also, you know, I grew up with goth music and punk and DIY, and I had a zine. And that's how I started sort of in my journalism career, was having this zine, which to me, all of these forms of counterculture and outsider are all sort of pointing back to this idea of sort of owning your own identity,
00:09:28.620not conforming to uh sort of the expectation societally um and being who you really are and
00:09:37.140loving what you really love um in a fearless way yeah i think all witches are punks whether
00:09:44.460whether they self-identify as punk or not because exactly like you're saying that is that
00:09:51.340i'm taking my own direction diy is obviously a huge thing in witchcraft like we're making
00:09:57.320our ingredients we're growing herbs ourselves you know and maybe that doesn't belong in like
00:10:03.560cbgb the growing of herbs but to me it's like it's very it's very connected um bring me back
00:10:11.040to the series again listeners i'm touching it they're gorgeous they're sensual like they really
00:10:17.320and i do love tashin i have to shout out tashin for making affordable art books um so thank you
00:10:24.820Tashin for helping me fill all of my shelves with various affordable coffee table art books.
00:10:31.180Yes. I'm very lucky to be working with them. I've been working with them on other books for
00:10:36.320the last 15 years. And it's an incredible publisher. And we actually are doing,
00:10:44.600we, they just came out, we're doing, starting to do pocket editions of our books. So we have
00:10:51.260tarot and astrology the first two books are now out in these smaller $20 editions which I'm very
00:10:57.380excited about because my whole idea when coming to Tashim with this project was to make them as
00:11:04.900affordable as possible um and they still you know even these 500 page books are still only $40 but
00:11:13.040now we are going to have a $20 version as well which is I'm very excited about like so also a
00:11:18.980a little easier to travel with yeah right like pocket like you said yeah it's so accessible
00:11:24.600that's that's wonderful I I cannot allow myself to buy both versions of the set but it is it is
00:11:32.860tempting um but like it seems I don't want to say obvious but it's like one of those things
00:11:42.000that comes out and you're like or I was anyway of course like of course this needed to exist like
00:11:48.940why why why only now it seems like this whole set I mean again visually I feel like they could exist
00:11:57.620at any time after the invention of the printing press they're so they're so timeless and and
00:12:07.340again like I said educational but sensual at the same time they really are kind of everything
00:12:12.200they're well named right because each volume feels like a library unto itself and then when
00:12:19.000you start them to put them together it's this like library on library on library so first of all I
00:12:26.700want to know like where did this idea come from and secondly how did you shepherd all of the
00:12:37.600possibilities into the first like the sing a single book witchcraft was the first one right
00:12:43.020tarot tarot was the first one right yeah yeah um well I like I said was always sort of
00:12:51.240very interested in the occult and in magic and um on my career I I was a I am still a culture
00:13:01.660journalist I still write for many magazines and newspapers and um but I started my career writing
00:13:09.160about music and film and art um and I did uh several books with Tashin that were um music
00:13:19.640and film books. I did a book with the actor and artist and director Dennis Hopper. I did
00:13:26.960Before He Passed Away. I did a book on John and Yoko Ono on the Imagine album. I did a book about
00:13:34.700Bob Dylan. And when I started thinking about this idea, I also work with other publishers. I'm a
00:13:48.020freelancer for Tashen. So I had done several music and several film books. And I, in my own
00:13:54.900time was researching and getting books by occult authors, collecting tarot decks. And what I found
00:14:07.020was that a lot of books about the occult philosophies and traditions
00:14:16.320were either very academic, very scholarly,
00:14:23.880or also from a particular point of view,
00:14:35.640um and also uh not art books and to me magic and art are intertwined there's there's we've been
00:14:46.880expressing these ideas visually for a millennium um so i started to think oh it'd be really
00:14:54.680interesting to do introductory and i always say this these books are very much introductions to
00:15:01.620these ideas. We have a whole mission statement at the back of every book that's the same in every
00:15:07.400book, which is basically like, here's the key, go deeper, we have an extended bibliography
00:15:14.120resources, like go deeper, if something resonates. I am not an expert, I am a journalist. So trying
00:15:23.360to approach these subjects from a journalistic perspective. And something I always say is I'm
00:15:31.000writing about tarot or ritual or the pyramids in the same way I would, say, write a New Yorker
00:15:40.720article on my favorite band. I'm going deep with research, but I'm also expressing my own
00:15:46.320passion, but I'm also staying objective. And then we incorporate specific voices. And of course,
00:15:55.740I interview, you know, contemporary practitioners, scholars, and we incorporate those as pull quotes throughout the book.
00:16:04.580So you're really kind of hearing from all these amazing people who are deep studying these topics deeply, but allowing them to have to express that in their own voice.
00:16:17.160And then sort of offering with my essays that I write a more general sort of overview.
00:16:23.020We always start with the history of a topic. And then we always end the last chapter of every book is always how these traditions are incorporated into pop culture and contemporary fine art.
00:16:36.860um and so you're kind of getting this uh bird's eye view um and also uh one of the great joys of
00:16:50.500this book these books are being able to work with archives all over the world um work with museums
00:16:59.200all over the world pull from these incredible archives of material but then also work with
00:17:05.580all these amazing contemporary scholars, contemporary artists. So you'll have, you know,
00:17:10.880an ancient Egyptian mural next to a Japanese contemporary artist. There's the books are
00:17:21.560arranged by idea and topic, not chronology. So it's this beautiful way of showing how
00:17:31.020these concepts have been explored um through thousands of years in different ways um visually
00:17:41.660so so yeah so that is that and and tarot being the first book um each of the the books is
00:17:49.500structured in some ways um the tarot was of course the great book to start on because it is a visual
00:17:57.480esoteric art. It is a symbolic esoteric art. It also, at the time, there were no books that were
00:18:06.760like this book. There's been many great books since that are collected works of tarot, but
00:18:12.940there really wasn't anything like this. And it being sort of my first connection to esoteric
00:18:20.560philosophy and art, it felt like a good place to kind of start. And then it ended up the
00:18:26.160numerological structure the 22 major arcana all of that got woven into the actual structure of
00:18:34.060the book so we always have what the designer thunderwing who is very much my partner in this
00:18:39.620nick taylor is his name thunderwing is his studio um he was a friend that i brought onto this
00:18:45.260project um and is we we kind of always have like what is our major arcana section um and uh
00:18:55.580Yeah. So go Nick. Someone's writing go Nick. He's amazing. And his wife, Jennifer, who was also part of Thundering. They're just amazing. I mean, they're, you know, it's all an amazing team of people working on this.
00:19:09.340And so, yeah, we always kind of unlock the, each book, the topic through really this magical table of contents. The Spirit Worlds book, the Sacred Sites book is set up like a pilgrimage. We, we leave the site, we, we move through the world.
00:19:32.380the spirit worlds book is set up like a seance so we we open the circle we call in the guides we
00:19:40.380actually have a beautiful sigil that we commissioned at the front of the book that's
00:19:45.800a sort of protective sigil for welcoming in the reader welcoming in the spirits but also
00:19:51.760you know forming some boundaries because we go into all sorts of demonology and you know it's
00:20:04.300all of these ideas that we're exploring. So we kind of set it up as a ceremony. So the book
00:20:11.460itself is a ceremony. So yeah, and Nick created our logo, which you can see on the spine, which
00:20:21.320is a key, but it's actually the Library of Eskaterica, a T, an L, an O, and an E.
00:20:30.640And that really sums up what these books are. They're keys to unlock. And then you move forward,
00:20:39.960go deeper. If you resonate with something, they're an invitation. They're not these sort of
00:20:48.420academic deep dives they are excited journalistic uh celebrations of these ideas with a call at the
00:20:57.460end of every book to kind of go deeper and explore all the amazing people who are part of our books
00:21:04.040and the community around our books and we just launched our newsletter which i'm so excited
00:21:08.600about it's free and like there's such an incredible community of and it's evolving all the time of
00:21:16.560artists that are having shows and all over the world of, you know, Pam Grossman, who's my co
00:21:22.500editor on the witchcraft book, who's amazing, has a new book coming out. So I'm trying to kind of
00:21:28.660figure out different ways to be supporting the community that is evolving through the books.
00:21:34.840Yes, I got an advanced reading copy of Pam's new book. She's going to be on the pod too. And
00:21:40.020I mean, we'll talk about Pam another time. But listeners, like, this is the kind of richness
00:21:45.420that I'm talking about when I recommend this book series that like the logo is a key which makes
00:21:50.200sense but it's also a sigil that was created by a magician like that's the richness that I'm
00:21:57.260talking about with these books and and you touched on this but it's so interesting to me when I'm
00:22:02.940I'm flipping through them I know members of our coven will sit down when they get a new volume
00:22:06.800and read it cover to cover I'm like a flip arounder it's just who I am yeah not bibliomancy
00:22:13.920A little bibliomancy, but what's striking to me is how, I mean, again, it's practices, it's art, it's esotericism from all across history, but it all resonates for us in our contemporary culture.
00:22:33.500And there's something so timeless about the occult.
00:22:39.080And I was thinking about how, you know, now at the beginning of the 21st century, we're seeing this real resurgence in people getting into witchcraft or dabbling or even just thinking differently.
00:22:51.460but we also saw that at the turn of the last century yes you know with the crowley and the
00:22:58.920and the um pixie coleman smith and the and the and the golden dawn so i mean this is kind of a
00:23:05.980weird question but what do you think it is about turns of centuries that make us and maybe it has
00:23:12.260nothing to do with turns of centuries and if that's the case then please like what why do you
00:23:17.100think there's this sort of cyclical emergence and then sort of shadow and light and shadow
00:23:24.080yeah i mean i think that we you know we go through these cycles of course i think there's
00:23:32.620you know this this the planetary cycles the astrological cycles um the movement of uh
00:23:41.040of civilization but also our connection the way that we um of technology and I think also too
00:23:50.440you have these kind of you know you of course in the middle of the uh 20th century you have
00:23:56.640sort of the the counterculture the 60s counterculture the 50s and it's the beatniks and
00:24:01.820And there also was a renewed interest in esoteric and that came with the counterculture.
00:24:12.400And I do think that art and esoteric philosophies tend to merge.
00:24:21.300You have the surrealists of the 1920s who were working with dreams, who were working with, you know, spirits.
00:24:28.340You have Hilma Ofklund, who is connecting with five other women and automatic drawing.
00:24:34.760You have the spiritualists of the mid-1800s who were, I think, politics, art, movements, and esoteric all kind of blend into one.
00:24:48.700And I think when you have a political movement that is striving for some sort of freedom, freedom of thought, for the spiritualists, they were very involved with the suffragette movement, they were very involved with, in the 60s, there was the civil rights movement, there was the second wave, you know, sort of feminist movement.
00:25:13.600I think that that there is a these, like I said, these are ideas, these are philosophies that are, that are there for us to be able to empower ourselves to be able to transform not only ourselves, but the world, right.
00:25:31.020So I think that allowing people access to these tools in the guise of a pretty art book is kind of my main goal.
00:25:43.280The Trojan horse of like, oh, it's a really pretty art book, but it's actually got these very, you know, transformational concepts.
00:25:55.540And all of these ideas really are, you know, based in our original indigenous religions, no matter where you are in the world, you have an indigenous religion that was really based in connecting to the earth and connecting to community.
00:26:15.860um and so i i feel like a lot of these concepts kind of can be traced back to wherever each of
00:26:24.540us is from originally where our ancestry is from to these early um traditions uh pre-christian
00:26:33.660traditions so all time magic is always i mean again like i think i can't remember the exact
00:26:43.420number but um the first like evidence of humans doing kind of magical rituals that they found
00:26:50.560I can't remember if it's like 20,000 years old or maybe even more but I mean we've only had
00:26:58.260electricity for like 150 years but we've been doing magic for 20,000 years yeah I'm gonna read
00:27:06.840something because again like you said you you write an essay for each book and they're they're
00:27:12.620generally at the beginning of the book this i actually write most of the books most most of
00:27:17.820the essays in the books um i witchcraft has many other writers um but um uh the rest of the books
00:27:28.000are pretty much me occasionally we'll have uh a uh i'll invite someone to do an essay the spirit
00:27:34.860world's book has two journalists that contributed essays the tarot book i wrote the whole thing
00:27:40.460um sacred sites i wrote the whole thing um but i always write an introduction so yeah yeah so this
00:27:48.000is from spirit worlds the newest volume um you wrote we showcase those artworks that transcend
00:27:57.980and become conduits that speak with the spirits that channel not only the muse but ghosts
00:28:06.840celestial beings and guides works that envision dimensions beyond our own and that translate for
00:28:15.640us cathartic messages from the divine it's so poetic can you expand on this idea of a translation
00:28:48.380And by contemporary culture, I mean, you know, the 20th and 21st century, essentially.
00:28:53.200um and the the final chapter of spirit worlds is a a chapter that explores what really what
00:29:03.380all the books are exploring in which i would love to just do a massive book that's just this but
00:29:08.720basically um channeled art art that the artist was specifically channeling and has acknowledged
00:29:21.440They are channeling their work through meditation in the case of like an Agnes Pelton, who was part of the amazing Transcendental Painting Group, or Hilma Aufklund, who was working with the five to channel specific guides who were guiding her paintings for the future.
00:29:38.980um Paulina Peavy who's an amazing artist from the 50s who was at a seance and um essentially
00:29:47.440tapped into a what she later um claimed was a was a extraterrestrial being who was channeling
00:29:56.800her works through her um I think you have as well artists like Sun Ra or Alice Coltrane or
00:30:04.940any of these like incredible artists who are you know sun raw was channeling guides from
00:30:13.340other worlds from the past from atlantis from the serious star um you have all art i believe
00:30:21.060is channeled but but i essentially we're showcasing artists who have like said this is from
00:30:28.920I am channeling this work um and so it's it's it's really beautiful incredible work that has been
00:30:38.620um taken from the ether to the divine whatever that artist felt was source um whether it was
00:30:49.080an extraterrestrial whether it was a a guide whether it was an angel um whether it was through
00:30:56.320some sort of meditative somatic process and created art from it and that to me is so exciting
00:31:05.000and is really the core idea of these books is like how do we tap in and channel our own creativity
00:31:14.040how do we clear our own channels to channel our own creativity and when I say creativity I don't
00:31:19.560mean necessarily art or music or you know dance or performance it's how you live it's how you
00:31:27.440interact with the world um any everyone is an artist you're you're creating your own reality
00:31:34.160your own life and it'll make you everyone has something to offer that's so unique to who they
00:31:40.520are because there's you know the the the ultimate beautiful made of stardust each of us having
00:31:48.760lived our own experiences there's no one who has our voice right so how do we understand what
00:31:57.060turns us on what what we are channeling what we are tipped into and what we want to offer
00:32:01.880um and then how do we express that in in our work in our relationships um you know and it doesn't
00:32:10.760mean necessarily monetizing it or you know becoming famous from it and sometimes it does
00:32:18.040And but if you love to do something and you really speak through the garden, you know, through teaching others, through being a mother or father, then then these these tools are ways to kind of go deeper in that offering, you know.
00:32:35.320listeners like you can't see me but i'm literally just like bouncing up and down in my chair because
00:32:41.440i'm so excited about this like jess we're gonna have to get together another time and just talk
00:32:47.120about sunra yoko ono graham parsons yes yes i know you've done some writing about graham parsons who
00:32:55.140like lives eternally inside my heart my facebook yes yeah um but i suppose to stick to the topic
00:33:04.200And I agree completely. And I think that that's, again, something that is missing from our, our, and again, fascism, capitalism, whatever, has driven this idea out of us that our lives are a creative process.
00:33:19.780yes that you don't have to be sun raw and uh you know a golden cape and a story about outer space
00:33:28.340in order to be creative like we have the potential to make creative decisions every minute of every
00:33:36.200day yes and i think that this series is potentially going to really inspire people
00:33:42.140to to take that up because you cover so many different aspects there's something in there
00:33:50.000that will inspire everyone and again like as a as a musician myself I sort of think of myself
00:33:57.040as a sonic witch um yeah I found that too sometimes I'm writing a song and it's laborious
00:34:03.660and I'm working and working and sometimes the song just it comes sure it's just like you say
00:34:10.060from the ether and all I have to do is transcribe it and that's so exciting to me because it like
00:34:18.640it makes me believe in this in this idea that everything that happens in our imaginations
00:34:24.700is potentially connected to the spirit world sure yeah yeah if if someone is like thinking
00:34:31.920about maybe a loved one who has passed and and an idea pops into their head whether it's like
00:34:36.820the smell of their perfume or that these aren't necessarily just oh well it was just my imagination
00:34:42.480we've demeaned the imagination I think right and so now instead of like well that's just my
00:34:48.300imagination I think to myself well that's a message from spirit and it makes me feel more
00:34:54.980confident about going forward and materializing yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's one of the things
00:35:02.880i love about tarot is you know and and oracle ducks and divination is this idea that i mean
00:35:13.120particularly with traditional tarot you have these 22 archetypes um that have been in place0.96
00:35:20.560at least since the 1100s and it's always so amazing to me that you know you have the fool0.93
00:35:28.680you have the human journey as exemplified by the fool into the magician into the high priestess0.52
00:35:35.800and empress and you have these archetypes that have resonated with us we are the same in terms
00:35:43.620of our wants our desires our needs our dreams as we were 800 years ago because we resonate with
00:35:50.280these archetypes and to me the way that i use tarot is really um as i do a card pull every day
00:35:59.440i usually work just with the 22 arcana the traditional arcana and i just say you know
00:36:04.680what should i be focusing on or if i'm working creatively what's blocking me and and to me
00:36:11.140these are archetypes that really kind of tell you what you already know and they're these direct
00:36:17.200lines into your own intuition and i think that all of these philosophies these traditions these
00:36:26.480practices whether it's ritual um whether it is connecting with the earth through plant magic
00:36:33.440through herbs through forest bathing whether it's connecting with community through you know
00:36:40.080performance or dance or theater or connecting with your guides they're all just ways they're
00:36:48.640connections they're ways to connect to source to yourself to each other to the planet to above and
00:36:55.460below right so I just I feel like what I'm trying to do really is is introduce a lot of these ideas
00:37:06.020and let the reader also just enjoy the beautiful art and the beautiful quotes from amazing
00:37:14.360practitioners and scholars, but also find what works for them, find what resonates with them,
00:37:21.940because some people may be more connected to astrology, some people may be more connected to
00:37:28.660ritualistic witchcraft and a certain tradition. It's whatever palette you can create on your own.
00:37:37.800And sometimes it's a, I mean, for me, and I think for many people, it's a sort of
00:37:43.000beautiful quilt that we're weaving of different ideas and traditions that resonate with us. And
00:37:49.240I was raised Catholic. And obviously, I have a lot of issues with the Catholicism and Christianity0.93
00:37:57.560in general, but there is also some core concepts within that that I still sort of retain in my
00:38:05.080own traditional practice. And I think it's very important for people to feel connected. We have
00:38:13.120a time where we have so many people seeking, and they don't necessarily feel comfortable within
00:38:21.360traditional religious structures, but we still need to feel connected to some sort of source.
00:38:27.560in order to feel connected to each other and to ourselves.
00:38:32.600So finding what source means to you and what spirit means to you,
00:38:52.520you know uh you have community and you can find them um and so i think that that's also i think
00:39:02.420that's also why there's been a huge upsurge in you know this idea of the witch um of alternate
00:39:12.240uh spiritualities of the occult is because we do have a way of making these connections now
00:39:19.700through the internet, through Instagram, through podcasts. We have a way of connecting with others
00:39:25.560of our ilk, you know, which, which was not the case when I was growing up, you really had to
00:39:32.680search. And that's also one of the reasons why I think curation, shepherding is so
00:39:41.720and just to kind of, you know, bring it back to what I said at the beginning,
00:39:47.800I feel so lucky that I have a career where I've been a journalist studying music and culture and art. And I feel like my job is to point out things that maybe didn't get their fair due the first time around that were underground and kind of hold them up and offer them for people to see.
00:40:17.800in and to, um, remind them of all this amazing, all this amazing stuff that's happening. We're
00:40:25.300bombarded with, right. But how do we curate that? And I'm really trying to become a trusted source
00:40:33.480of like, Hey, look at all of this amazing art, all of this amazing music, all of this amazing
00:40:39.460writing, these voices, these scholars, how do we, um, and contain them and offer them, um,
00:40:46.260and hold them up to the light, you know, sort of pull them out of the depths and hold them up to
00:40:51.120the light. And that really is my sort of mission. I think it's in the witchcraft book. You,
00:41:02.060you wrote, we are all witches. Yes. So firstly, I appreciate that invitation and that sort of0.90
00:41:09.600permission slip maybe for everyone to think of themselves as a witch, but why, why do you think
00:41:15.420everyone is a witch or we we at least are all witches here yeah I mean um we're just I mean
00:41:24.580what an incredible magical beings we are as humans in in in these beautiful bodies and
00:41:30.980consciousness and I think that um we we just need to be reminded of the power that we have
00:41:39.700And we need to be reminded of the beauty of nature of the earth that we're on, the bodies we're in, and marry that with this consciousness that we are all part of, this technology that we all have access to, but not live entirely there, right?
00:42:04.420it's all the balance. But taking, grounding ourselves in, you know, nature first, I think
00:42:13.520is really important and finding our power where we can. But, but yeah, we, we all have, I mean,
00:42:22.760you know, we're all this walking miracles, right, that we even exist in this timeline and this
00:42:30.440moment in these bodies and you know what an incredible time to be harnessing your power
00:42:38.920too I have to ask um I am currently writing by the time this interview comes out it'll listeners
00:42:47.500you will have heard this episode I'm writing about Yoko Ono from from this this witch perspective
00:42:53.460not from this Beatles history perspective right and I know you of course the classic yes I'm a0.97
00:43:00.420witch I'm a bitch I don't care what you say um you wrote about Yoko outside of witchcraft you
00:43:07.340you wrote about Yoko so um as I'm still creating this script I already quoted what you wrote about0.95
00:43:14.460Yoko in the witchcraft book in the script but like is there anything else you want to say about Yoko
00:43:20.320that I can I can take for my yeah I mean Yoko's work is in almost all the books too
00:43:27.020um we almost her visual art her visual art is almost always included or we write about it and
00:43:33.080and that that quote you have from the witchcraft book that starts the book which is from her song
00:43:39.560is is really I I think that her um she's I I was lucky enough to interview her and um one of the
00:43:52.360things she said, which I always go back to and I feel like is so important, especially
00:43:58.260for younger people, I think, to understand. As I asked her, I said, you know, you were sort of
00:44:06.220at this moment of revolution and change and, you know, of the 60s moving into a whole new era.
00:44:16.800and do you think that the world is a better place now or then and without hesitation she said
00:44:25.140the world is by far a better place now she said you know there were so she said you have to
00:44:32.400remember there were so few of us that yes our voices were loud and in retrospect you think it
00:44:39.600was this massive movement she said there were so few of us and now you have she said you know now
00:44:45.460you have housewives in Iowa doing yoga you have you know she's like the the expansion of people
00:44:54.600taking control of their own lives and taking care of themselves through you know all these
00:45:06.940different practices which were considered obscure or weird or they're now universal
00:45:14.960And we have this tool, the internet, which she uses very, very powerfully and wisely, and art and music to be able to express these ideas.
00:45:28.700And she was unequivocally, you know, as hard as it is to kind of see, there are more people in the world trying to transform it in a positive way than there were in 1968, you know?
00:45:48.960So for her, that really someone that wise who's been here that long to say that is something I always go back to. And I myself, I just turned 55. And I can tell you unequivocally that the world is a better place now than it was when I was a child in the 70s.
00:46:09.860is as much as we're bombarded by the chaos and the sadness and the crisis,
00:46:18.500there's still people in general are kinder, more accepting, more open, and more loving than they've
00:46:27.640ever been in the history of human civilization. So I think that's something really important to
00:46:32.720hold on to when you feel overwhelmed. And, you know, again, bringing it back to yourself,
00:46:38.560How can you be the kindest, most open, most loving person you can be?
00:46:44.640From there, it's everything is possible, right?
00:49:17.400But I do think, you know, we, we, we just have to, we have to empower ourselves to, to be able to use this, these tools wisely, and not become the sorcerer's apprentice and allow it to, you know,
00:49:34.080understand how to um be in the world as well as online you know before we run out of time you
00:49:43.380did mention you're working on the next volume is it under wraps is it a secret or can you
00:49:48.600it is mystical beasts oh listeners if if you listen to the missing witches podcast you know
00:49:59.900that every spring we devote an entire season to the non-human world so what's the do you know what
00:50:05.660the pub date is for that well they wanted it much earlier but i am pushing back because i
00:50:11.660we are almost done with it but i also am like uh i want spirit worlds to have a moment to
00:50:19.040to breathe so i think it'll probably be coming out in late spring um usually the books the first
00:50:26.240book came tarot came out in 2020 um so each book is taken about it's usually nine to ten months
00:50:34.380uh before the next one comes out um so yeah so yeah i'm very excited it's really fun yeah
00:50:43.880then it's kind of a beautiful balance coming out of writing about the passages between worlds and
00:50:51.180death and and the gods and goddesses of the afterlife and seances and ghosts and the supernatural
00:50:58.600with spirit worlds now to be writing about you know griffins and dragons and mermaids and gorgons
00:51:08.480and yeah yeah um someone in the chat wants to know do you have a favorite can you choose between
00:51:18.500your children oh no they're all they're all special in their own ways um they all have
00:51:27.520changed me personally and so many ways i've learned so much and every every book is this new
00:51:35.080amazing adventure and i'm so and they also they're not just mine so it's hard to choose because they
00:51:42.540are they're each their own living community you know so they're each so special in their own way
00:51:48.720um yeah yeah i love all my babies so please if you will do me the honor of vowing to come back
00:51:57.780next year so we can talk about beasts yes but also so we can talk about sun raw and dennis hopper
00:52:04.040and grandma a whole history of the intersection between punk rock and witchcraft like
00:52:11.880there's there's a whole cauldron there that we haven't even stirred up the
00:52:18.520well i mean the occult and heavy all right all right all right we could talk for another half
00:52:25.980hour about just what else we could talk about but obviously you're super prolific and i need
00:52:32.380you to get back to your work so i can have another volume again listeners the newest volume
00:52:40.120is spirit worlds let me just tell you all the volumes to catch your ear tarot sacred sites
00:52:47.360astrology plant magic witchcraft and of course spirit worlds all edited by our jessica hundley
00:52:55.420i can't wait to talk to you again thank you so much thank you so much and thank you for everyone
00:53:02.200that came on the the call to really appreciate it and thank you and yeah i i'm i'm so thrilled
00:53:10.380to be here thank you again and i'll see you again next year yes as we always say a blessed fucking0.86