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Ain't it a Scary Halloween with Sean and Carrie – Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast

Happy Halloween from Thou Shalt Not Suffer!We're talking about Halloween's origins and the past influences coming through into our modern traditions with Sean and Carrie from Ain't It Scary with Sean and Carrie. In this super fun episode, we gab about our favorite Halloween traditions, such as trick or treating, wearing costumes, and bobbing for apples. We reflect on the social and cultural generational shifts driving the nuances, fears and creativity of celebration adaptations over time. We talk about it all. This Halloween, you'll want to turn the lights off and ignore the neighborhood kids so that you can listen to this episode.Ain't It Scary With Sean and Carrie PodcastSign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project at change.org/witchtrials Buy Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, by Nicholas RogersEnd Witch Hunts Movement Share your ideas and feedbackSupport the show

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Show Notes

Happy Halloween from Thou Shalt Not Suffer!
We’re talking about Halloween’s origins and the past influences coming through into our modern traditions with Sean and Carrie from Ain’t It Scary? with Sean and Carrie. In this super fun episode, we gab about our favorite Halloween traditions, such as trick or treating, wearing costumes, and bobbing for apples. We reflect on the social and cultural generational shifts driving the nuances, fears and creativity of celebration adaptations over time. We talk about it all. This Halloween, you’ll want to turn the lights off and ignore the neighborhood kids so that you can listen to this episode.

Ain’t It Scary? with Sean and Carrie
Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project at change.org/witchtrials
Buy Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, by Nicholas Rogers
End Witch Hunts Movement
Share your ideas and feedback

Transcript

[00:00:10] Josh Hutchinson: Welcome to a fun and informative episode of Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Halloween Podcast, in an episode that asks why we trick or treat and wear costumes. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:21] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack Skellington.
[00:00:24] Josh Hutchinson: Today, we're joined by fellow podcasters, Sean and Carrie of Ain't It Scary with Sean and Carrie.
[00:00:30] Sarah Jack: This is a fun chat about Halloween traditions.
[00:00:33] Josh Hutchinson: You'll really enjoy this one.
[00:00:35] Sarah Jack: 4 podcasters who love Halloween talking all about it.
[00:00:39] Josh Hutchinson: And you can join in on the fun.
[00:00:41] Sarah Jack: Climb up into the wagon for an enjoyable podcast hayride.
[00:00:45] Josh Hutchinson: This episode is a real treat.
[00:00:48] Sarah Jack: Throw on your costume, grab a candied apple, and get cozy for this one.
[00:00:53] Josh Hutchinson: We'll talk about all things Halloween with our wonderful guests.
We are excited to announce the Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project, which seeks recognition of all of Massachusetts' witch trial victims.
[00:01:06] Sarah Jack: The Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project proposes that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts restore to good standing those convicted of witchcraft and issue an apology to all who were accused and suffered the consequences of accusation.
[00:01:22] Josh Hutchinson: This effort follows on the heels of the exoneration of Elizabeth Johnson, Jr. by Massachusetts in 2022 and the exoneration of 34 individuals by Connecticut in May, 2023.
[00:01:34] Sarah Jack: Please visit massachusettswitchtrials.org to find out how you can volunteer.
[00:01:40] Josh Hutchinson: Lend your voice and effort to speak for people all but forgotten to history.
Sign the petition today. The link is in the show description. Thank you.
[00:01:49] Sarah Jack: He's skeptical, she's spooky. Together they explore the unknown, unsolved, unbelievable, and just plain weird on their podcast, Ain't It Scary with Sean and Carrie. With their passion for history and the truth, they bring their different perspectives to today's episode team up. It's about to get scary with Sean and Carrie and Josh and Sari.
Sean and Carrie, we're so glad you're here.
[00:02:15] Sean and Carrie: So glad to be here. We first got in touch with you guys, I think, when you were just getting started. And I feel like you had a part in the exoneration recently of the witches here in Connecticut and uh, well, non witches, the victims here in Connecticut. And it's been great to watch your podcast grow, it feels like grow past its original remit now, witches all over the world and modern day witch hunts and some really interesting but important stuff. Whereas we talk about stuff that might be interesting, but it's often not very important, at least not in the immediate sense.
[00:02:53] Sarah Jack: I love your format. What you guys do, there's not another team out there that can do it just like you. How did you guys decide what you guys were going to be talking about? Cause you have a great area that you cover.
[00:03:06] Sean and Carrie: It actually, it took us a few years for getting into making Ain't It Scary. You know, COVID, lockdown, you get to talking about some really weird things, and we were always talking about history, and we were always very honest with each other with our interests right from the beginning, so he knew I loved scary stuff and weird stuff, so we would always be talking about that, and we loved to travel, so we would always hit up a ghost store whenever we'd go somewhere, and then from there, we've just always been really interested in true crime and history, for sure. I think I brought my interest in the paranormal to Sean, because he doesn't really believe in it, but he still enjoys the stories and all that, the history aspect of it.
Yeah, and we felt it out a little bit as we go, like sometimes a particular, you know, you're doing a story on D. B. Cooper, and you're like is this scary, though? And it's it's weird enough. We don't know this guy. All right. This fits in the remit or I'll be doing something on a, you know, on Nero or something. It's this isn't really horror movie stuff. Am I still in the remit of the podcast? But Carrie's let me get away with it so far.
I feel like it would be scary enough to be on Nero's bad side, so that's...
Yeah, oh yeah.
Yeah we were just in lockdown and decided we have some of this audio equipment around, let's give it a shot. We had bonded over our love of podcasts before then, and yeah. And it ended up pretty well. It took a while to get started, for sure, but then after that, we just really committed to it.
Yeah, my educational background's in production and stuff, and so is Carrie's, just on different sides, yeah. And so it was a natural thing to just take the conversations we were already having and put them on the internet.
[00:04:55] Josh Hutchinson: And so great that you did. I'm so glad about your show. It's so entertaining, but educational and a really fun ride every episode.
[00:05:07] Sean and Carrie: Thank you very much.
Thank you. And I think we even started off a little more upbeat. I think we've tackled some really intense subjects over the years now. But we always try to keep it relatable in a way and not with the true crime stuff, not be too leery and into the weeds of the gross stuff. I'm always trying to be respectful because you are telling someone else's story, but then when you have Jeff the Talking Mongoose or some crazy ghost story or whatever, you could have a little fun with it once in a while.
[00:05:41] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I see you've been doing vampires lately.
[00:05:45] Sean and Carrie: Yeah, we've had two weeks of historical vampires. Historical vampire inspirations with Vlad Dracula and then this week was Elizabeth Bathory. And uh, really, really interesting people who lived in a really, you know, a tough time to be a person.
Probably didn't make it any easier on themselves or anyone else, though.
Oh no. I wouldn't have wanted to necessarily have either one of them in my life, but I think we both learned some surprising things about both of those people. And, next week, I think we'll learn surprising things about their connections, or how tenuous their connections are to Dracula, which is going to be our topic next week. and Try and keep up this vampire thing, I don't know, all the way to Halloween if we can.
[00:06:29] Sarah Jack: Awesome.
[00:06:31] Josh Hutchinson: Perfect.
[00:06:32] Sarah Jack: And what are the platforms people can check your episodes out on?
[00:06:36] Sean and Carrie: Yeah, if you're looking for Ain't It Scary with Sean and Carrie, you can find it. Hey, if there's a podcast platform that you can't find it on, let me know, because I've tried to hit all of them: Apple, all of the usual platforms. All the pod catchers should be there.
Google Podcasts.
Anyways, Google, yes. And at aintitscary.com. You could also listen to any of the episodes there if you wanna really go desktop with it.
[00:07:01] Sarah Jack: So one of your episodes I loved from last year was your Halloween history.
[00:07:07] Sean and Carrie: Thank you. Then that was something that we had wanted to do since the very beginning. That was on our, when you sit down and you're going, "I'm going to make a podcast," that was definitely one that we wanted to do. But there was a lot to it. So I had to do a lot of research for it.
There are some topics from that original list of 50 ideas that we still haven't gotten to. It's we want to really do it right, though.
Yeah.
But the yeah the Halloween, it took us a while to take the right swing at it.
Yeah. We did our Salem Witch Trials episodes first. That was like our first, I think our first big Halloween series that we did. And then, yeah, we wanted to do, it's just such an interesting history and it's got so many unexpected connections across history. So definitely something worth looking at.
[00:07:53] Josh Hutchinson: I definitely recommend everybody check out that episode from October 30th, 2022, I believe. And that's the History of Halloween on Ain't It Scary with Sean and Carrie. And I learned so much from that episode, and I'm hoping that we can pick your brain a little tonight and get some golden nuggets out of there. I'm sure there's plenty there. The episode was full of them. So what can you tell us about the very beginning of Halloween history?
[00:08:27] Sean and Carrie: Absolutely. So yeah, there's no real start date as these things go. They just appear in time. And the thing that we can really trace back the most to today's Halloween in the past is to the Celts, the Druids. These are people that lived in early Ireland, Wales, England, Scotland, that whole area. And they had a really nature-based lifestyle. They were a nature-based religion. It was a pagan religion based on nature. And they were farmers and they lived on the land, so they were very connected to the earth.
And the original Halloween was one of their pagan traditions to celebrate, Samhain, is what it was called and still called by pagan practitioners today, and that's really to mark the onset of winter and basically when the harvest was done. Back in the day, we've always had dramatic climate changes and weather changes, and at this point in time, at that place in the world, you really had two halves of the year. You had the summer half. And the winter half. It was really much more like six months, six months, and this was to celebrate the onset of the winter half of the year, where you would bring in the harvest and hibernate and not be harvesting and farming as much. So it was really their New Year a lot of those things that we associate with this time of year, those harvests and cornucopias and all that fun stuff, really comes from that this was a harvest, like a pagan harvest celebration to mark the end of that time of year.
[00:10:24] Josh Hutchinson: So I imagine there was a lot of feasting then.
[00:10:28] Sean and Carrie: Lot of feasting, obviously they would save what they could, but they would also, it was like a communal feast. It was very symbolic, because they were sharing it with their ancestral dead, as well. They felt like this was the time of year where they could really connect with those who had passed away before them. And so it was marked with these feasts where they would commune with the dead, symbolically, in a way. And so they would have part of the harvest set aside just for this big party, and part of it would also be offerings for the dead.
[00:11:05] Josh Hutchinson: After the harvest, it's a time of plenty. Of course, you have to plan ahead and not starve yourself at the end of the year, but it's a time of plenty, and you're looking at this bleak season coming up. So you've got to get out there and live it up while you can.
[00:11:22] Sean and Carrie: Absolutely, and I'm sure they had some raging parties where maybe they had a little too much of the harvest, a little more than they meant to, but yeah, it was the time before things were about to get hard with winter, and they're living much closer to the land. A lot of people wouldn't survive the winter. A lot of people would starve, if they hadn't planned out, or if their crops hadn't produced that year. This was a really major time to try and connect with the earth and make sure that they were all, all good with the good vibes of the earth and their ancestors to try and watch over them in this very difficult time of the year.
[00:12:04] Josh Hutchinson: I want to party with a druid, have a nice druidic rave. That would be killer.
[00:12:10] Sean and Carrie: Raise some standing stones? Absolutely.
[00:12:12] Josh Hutchinson: Oh, yeah. Beat some drums in there. Get those vibrations going.
[00:12:17] Sean and Carrie: Yeah. There would definitely be a lot of music. There would be, a big thing was bonfires. They were really big about the firepits, which we're bringing back nowadays. But, because their religion was just so based on nature, it wasn't even like the same kind of idea of a Christian God or anything like that. It was, the world is their god. So because the sun was growing weaker in the colder months, and especially as they got closer to that time of the year, they really saw it as like the sun is a god ,and so what they would do is this like begets like idea of if we make these big bonfires, and we have this big light, hopefully that'll have the sun make sure that it doesn't leave them forever. Cause that was always one of their fears was that the sun would rise again. So they figured if we put up these fires, the sun will like that, and it'll want to stick around, pretty much. It sounds a little wild to us today, because we understand what the sun is, and that it will come back, hopefully.
But, yeah, I guess any religion can be wild in the eyes of someone else, but it's really cool how these traditions, harvest bonfires and like sitting around the fire pit having s'mores in the fall. That's such a fall activity, and they were doing that centuries before Jesus was even around, very BC.
When did the fear and the spooky start?
[00:13:49] Sean and Carrie: There is that, probably in our perspective today of they're connecting with the dead and their ancestors, that's spooky, but they wouldn't have seen it that way. It's very much like something like Dia de los Muertos, where it's more of a reverence. Part of the spookiness, I would have to say, came from the Christians, those good old Christians assimilating pagan traditions to try and, you know, like, well, they're already celebrating this, so we can figure it into our feast calendar and try to get them to join Christianity but not have to give up all of their traditions, and so they really went deep into the idea of a time of the dead, because they couldn't really call it the same way that it was, which was like a harvest festival paying tribute to the harvest, which was like a godlike figure.
You can't do that in Christianity, so they changed it to All Saints Day and All Souls Day. That was the time of what would be called Hallowmas, November 1st and 2nd. And so the Saints Day would be to mark the saints, especially in Catholicism, obviously, and then All Souls Day would be for the spirits of those who had passed already. I mean, Catholics do everything a little spookier, I feel like, so that sort of brought a little bit of a less of a celebratory tone and more of a mourning, like a sad tone when it came to All Souls Day. And then the dead really got involved, the idea of the dead got involved in the tributes. There would be a lot of prayers. People started baking soul cakes to you couldn't make sacrifices anymore to the dead, because that was pagan. So you could bake these cakes and make them as offerings, which became our treats that you would give out on Halloween. Yeah, I think Catholicism really brought a dark, I'm not trying to be critical, but like a darker kind of more mournful tone to it, and that just naturally became spooky.
Carrie, do you think it'd be accurate to say that it's always been about being closer to death, but that our attitudes toward death have changed?
I think that's exactly it. Yeah, I think as science and as time has gone on, as we've understood things more, death has become less of a constant in people's lives. Obviously it's constant in everyone's lives, but even through the Victorian era, people were having funerals in their houses, like people would be around death very often, right up close to it. And they were more used to it. So I think it makes more sense that as time has got on, we still have these traditions that are spooky or morbid, but they've become, in our perspectives, spookier and more morbid, because we're less familiar with death. And I think we're more scared of it, because it's much more of an unknown. People live a lot longer. People get well after getting a cold, knock on wood. Back in the day, if you caught a sniffle, that could be it. And people would have 10, 12 kids, because they were assuming that a few of them would not make it to adulthood. I think as we've dealt with the death much less in our day to day lives, that's made the sort of death rituals much creepier to us, because I think it freaks us out more.
[00:17:25] Josh Hutchinson: Think that's such a really good point. Now death is also a little sanitized, because so much of it occurs in hospitals and hospice that, you know, you're on in a hospital bed in hospital clinical conditions, it's all clean and peaceful and you're not in a home with your loved one being the one as the only one there for you.
[00:17:53] Sean and Carrie: Often you would be, like, as the loved ones, you would be the ones cleaning the bodies, dressing the bodies. You would be very much right into it, and probably from a young age. So people were much more, I guess, inoculated to the creepy factor.
Carrie has a fascination with this, not a creepy or prurient fascination, a fascination with this very prevalent Victorian tradition of the corpse photograph that they would take, especially after children had died, they would take a photo of the little child's corpse.
And you see these in antique stores and stuff sometimes. It's just a photo of a body, but you wanted to keep what that child looked like. Cause maybe people only got one portrait in their life at that time. And it was the easiest to take pictures of the dead, especially children, because children squirm around, they move around and those cameras, you would have to stay stock still for up to 10 minutes at a time for one picture. So often these parents didn't have pictures of their children at all, which to us sounds crazy because you could just take out your phone and take a picture.
But that was usually the best time where they could get a picture, or else you're not getting one and you just have to sort of based on your memory. So to us, that sounds horrific, like, oh, a picture of a dead body. To that grieving parent, that's the only image they would ever have of their child. And they wanted to have that image more than just never having a picture of them. So yeah, the traditions they had back then, they sound really extreme to us or very morbid or creepy, but to them, it was much more normal.
[00:19:36] Josh Hutchinson: You've talked about the Celtic influence on Halloween. One thing that interested me from your show was the Roman additions to Halloween. I wasn't aware of that.
[00:19:51] Sean and Carrie: I hadn't been either until I started looking into it, because you've got the Celts, you have the Christians and the Catholics, there has to be some sort of bridge there. And that was really the Romans. Everyone had different traditions going on, but the Romans, it's interesting because so many cultures had this sort of festival, the mark of the end of the harvest and the beginning of the cold seasons, because seasons don't really change, they change every year, but they haven't, they don't vary wildly. They're like, okay, next is when it gets dark and cold, and then it'll get warm and sunny again. So those were things that people would have celebrated since the beginning of time, because that was another common thing that we all had.
We all experienced when it got cold, and then we all experienced when it got warm again. So the Romans had their own festival, also November 1. The day's obviously a little wibbly wobbly, because the calendar is a newer thing than a lot of these traditions. But this would be the end of the harvest season for the Romans, and this would celebrate the goddess Pomona. They were very much into these feasts and festivals for their gods and goddesses, paying tribute.
I think it was even more deeply into the culture than even the Celts, because I think they were a little more disparate. They weren't as organized, maybe, in some of their beliefs. But the Romans in government and everything, and in the town you're praising the gods and goddesses. And this was the deity of the orchards and the harvest, and so they would have to pay tribute to her, because you want the harvest to be good again next year, so you want her to be happy with you. So you would have feasts of plenty, and that would be apples, nuts, and grapes, and orchard fruits, because orchards were a big thing in Rome and you know in that area and and so you'd have this big feast and then put everything away for winter and those are the kinds of things that they would dry or try to preserve for for the harder seasons so yeah the Romans brought that sort of fall girl energy into it with picking apples and like the idea of those kinds of harvest elements.
Yeah, pumpkin spice lattes.
They are the Romans are like the pumpkin spice latte of these traditions. It's like they're very much into like... You know, it's, it's autumn like, like, they're very, they're very into that they bring the harvest energy into it. So it's not really super spooky with them, but it's a very harvest based and very autumnal, their their traditions.
It wasn't super Roman. Not a single person or animal got murdered in that whole,
No, because it was all about crops. You just, you're just eating, you're eating your offerings.
[00:22:46] Josh Hutchinson: Wow. No gladiatorial war simulations.
[00:22:50] Sean and Carrie: No, it was a pretty peaceful, it was a pretty peaceful celebration.
[00:22:53] Josh Hutchinson: yeah, that's,
[00:22:53] Sean and Carrie: until, Constantine and then the Christians came in and they were like, you can't do this. But yeah.
Although I think once the Coliseum went up, basically every holiday was marked with a couple of people getting free.
That's true.
[00:23:05] Josh Hutchinson: yeah, a few hungry lions and a few unfortunate people.
[00:23:10] Sean and Carrie: There's really these interesting through lines throughout all of them. There's always going to be a feast. It's always marking a transition time and often because it's this transitory time where we're going into darkness and coldness and then bringing in often that has to do with marking the dead because the darkness is the unknown, is death, is all of these things.
And so that's why they would believe that we were closer to the dead at that time. And people had a very significant relationship with at least the concept of their ancestors, I don't know, through, through the early Christian times, I would say.
Not to be a podcaster on another podcast talking about another podcast, but in, in,
uh, In Dan Carlin's awesome fall of the Roman Republic thing, death Throws of the Republic, he calls it, he talks about how Julius Caesar would've grown up in a house where you just have the faces of all of your, you have an ancestor, Roman, you just have the faces of all of your dead ancestors, their death masks painted all over the walls of this room with lines showing, who's related to who, but they're all looking at you every day. Yeah, what are you going to do?
[00:24:20] Sarah Jack: Oh yeah.
[00:24:21] Sean and Carrie: I think in this digital age, I think a lot of people are trying to get back to that connection because so many of us, you know, you go back a few generations and then it's just lost and you, because a lot of us are immigrants, whether, we came from other countries to America or went somewhere else, we've lost those ties that they had so deeply.
So I think we're trying to get back to that, but yeah, because they had such close links to their ancestors and they had a lot of word of mouth of what they were like, and they were literally all around them often with statues and things like that, they would be paying tribute to them. And this was the time of year when they would do it.
[00:25:02] Josh Hutchinson: And bringing the apples to the party, that was a nice contribution to bring in the bobbing for apples, and now we have the candied apples.
[00:25:13] Sean and Carrie: Yeah. And the apples, they started with Rome. That's where it comes from. It comes from, I'm sure if there were apples around in the Druid times, they had it then too, because that was part of a crop in the harvest. But the idea of bobbing for apples and that being part of the tradition, and, I feel like that's yeah, so apple picking starts with the Romans and then you're, you start playing bobbing for apples around Victorian times, so they're still incorporating apples and they're just finding fun new ways to do it. And I think this would be called snap apple at the time was bobbing for apples. I guess you try to snap into it.
For the Victorians?
Yes.
[00:25:57] Josh Hutchinson: Okay.
[00:25:58] Sean and Carrie: They set a lot of our modern, not just for Halloween, even, but they set a lot of our kind of traditions in stone, right? For a lot of holidays?
A lot of holidays, yeah. But the biggest source of, specifically, our American concept of Halloween really starts with the Victorians. Obviously, because we had freedom of religion, that's why I think it became so popular here, because it wasn't, I mean some countries probably didn't allow it for a very long time 'cause it has these pagan roots. But we, we had this freedom of religion and that starts and we have the Revolutionary War, and then in the Victorian era the, they're feeling very close to death. The Victorians are notoriously very morbid. And they start to have actual Halloween parties and things like that where it's not samhain or like a pagan festival, but it's like a fun time to, they were like matchmaking events. You'd go and court your beau at the Halloween party in Victorian times.
[00:27:00] Josh Hutchinson: It's funny because we often think of the Victorians as such stuffy, prudish people, but they would let their hair down and go wild at these parties.
[00:27:10] Sean and Carrie: Absolutely, and funny you mention that because a lot of the reason we think that is because the most of the first photos we have that are surviving today, most of them are from the Victorian era, and they're all very serious, and they look really grumpy, and that's because often enough, they're trying desperately not to move an inch.
And you can't smile for 10 minutes straight, or else your face starts hurting, and then you drop your smile, and then you're all blurry in the picture. You had to be ramrod straight, and so you would just have a dead face, basically just trying to get the picture taken. And so we have an image of them being very grumpy and serious, but that's because they couldn't be like joshing around in pictures or, like grinning and smiling like we would today because they had to pose for so long.
So that's not really how people were. People were serious and people were cheerful and, just like nowadays. It's just that The evidence we have of them looks like they're all so serious. There's no candids because you would have had to wait 10 minutes to finish cheersing your friends at the bar or whatever it was you were trying to take a picture of.
Yeah, so the pose was just trying to just relax your whole body and just stare for 10 minutes. I'm hoping that this picture would come out because it was also very expensive. So that's why we have that impression of them. But they were, humans be humaning all the time. They did wear a lot of clothes.
I think that's the other reason we have that impression. I probably would have been cranky about that too.
[00:28:48] Josh Hutchinson: Now, when did the really wild side of Halloween, the mischief and tricks come in?
[00:28:57] Sean and Carrie: It's interesting because. Tricks and treats come through all throughout time even from the Celtic times and from the early Christian times of baking the soul cakes and giving those out. The idea of giving out tricks or treats or going from person to person or house to house to get these treats, that's from the beginning of Halloween, because you would try to, to go way back, you would wear disguises and try to outwit some of the spirits. And that was some of the fun stuff. So you would go from house to house trying to run away from things and lead the spirits away from town. And for your troubles, you would often get a treat, and then that would turn into offerings to the spirits. Now the Irish, they had a really big hand in trick or treating, actually, in our modern concept of trick or treating, and it was actually Irish immigrants.
Irish immigrants make everything more fun.
Absolutely.
It must be said.
And they, if the Victorians were like the era that had the most influence on what became Halloween as we know it, I feel like the Irish immigrants were the people that really had the most influence on American Halloween, because they had this really deep connection to their Celtic ancestors, so they still had some of those traditions, and they brought them over from their homeland. And even after Christianity, they're stubborn. They still want to do these traditions and they started marking that time of year. It became more and more popular and and yeah, revelers, Irish revelers would go from house to house, they would be singing songs on Halloween and they would be given ales or treats as they went from house to house singing their songs.
They really brought in trick or treating, they brought in the the it's arguable, but possibly the idea of the jack o'lantern. Jack o'lanterns were probably turnips that were carved and lit up to, to light the way. Again, it's dark early, you have to have a way to, to light the trying to get the spirits away from town and so they, they don't all descend on everyone, you want to bring them away, so you have these little turnips lit up and that'll guide their way. So that's probably something that came from Ireland.
So you're carrying a turnip from house to house and people are giving you free beer?
Yeah, that's pretty good.
Yeah, Irish Halloween doesn't sound spooky particularly, but it sounds fun. It sounds like a good time.
So they really brought that tradition to America and then it became something that kids did really mostly after World War II is when it became a kid's holiday.
[00:31:45] Sarah Jack: That's interesting. When you just mentioned the kids, I was thinking about how technology, is reaching children younger and younger. So I was like, oh, how did they pull in the Halloween fun younger and younger back then?
[00:31:58] Sean and Carrie: Yeah it was always something, interestingly enough, young girls were very, young girls have always been witchy. We've always been making potions in the backyard and things like that. We always have liked witchy stuff. And one thing that girls have always liked to do is, who am I going to marry? Whether you're doing mash or the little like paper things, fortunes, there's always been that, and so young girls around Halloween time would gather together at midnight because this is the time where we're closest to the spirit world and you can maybe get some answers about things, and they would try to do some divinations to find out who they were going to marry. Maybe the spirits would be, close enough that they'd be willing to tell them. So young girls really brought in that aspect of it, and they've always been interested. And then after World War II, we had so many kids because the baby boomer generation, uh, the youth population really sharply increased.
And that's because the spirits were such successful matchmakers? I guess.
[00:33:04] Sarah Jack: Yeah.
[00:33:05] Sean and Carrie: I guess so. And, you know, the holiday had become less spooky. It wasn't Victorian times anymore. And it had become more of a party holiday after Victorian times. Young girls had always been interested in the witchy aspect, so it just naturally became a kid centric holiday. Once there were so many kids, they all gathered together and started adopting these traditions.
And then there was money to be made, right? And the rest is history. Yes. Now we got to sell Halloween costumes and then the ball's rolling. Not that that's a bad thing. I love Halloween. Honestly, I love Halloween.
[00:33:43] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, I wouldn't mind if Halloween went on a little longer than it does. I think definitely by Labor Day you should be in Halloween mode if not, Fourth of July, start getting ready for it.
[00:33:57] Sean and Carrie: Preaching to the choir, I think our first Monster Mash might have, it might have still been August.
[00:34:01] Josh Hutchinson: Yes, very good.
[00:34:05] Sean and Carrie: Yeah, kids were also dressing up in costumes and at least as early as the 20s were some of the earliest mentions of actual kids costumes for Halloween. There was a, an article in Ladies Home Journal in 1920 that talked about some kids Halloween costumes, which I just love reading about because again, kids are always going to be kids and so what they're interested in is, it's always just fun and what they want to dress as. And in this article, they mentioned two Charlie Chaplins in the same group and a gingerbread man, so it's like this sort of fairy tale character. And then I just love the two Charlie Chaplins is having two Ironmans. That was what was popular. That's what kids liked. So it's a fun way to look at history as well. Yeah, kids are always going to be interested in their stuff and they're always going to want to dress like it.
[00:34:58] Sarah Jack: Is there an era between that fun piece where the kids got to start shaping the holiday and the satanic panic? What was the shift? Is there something in the middle there or did we just go straight into that?
[00:35:11] Sean and Carrie: Yeah, we didn't go straight into it. I think it's, when it comes to the Satanic Panic, which we've talked about on our show, it's very much the political leanings of the country. We're seeing some of those things now again, the same sort of, we're talking about baby eating again. It's, it comes in waves.
And Halloween, because it deals with fears and, you know, spookiness and fears of death, especially, it often gets associated with our general fears as a culture. Kids were starting to wear costumes and stuff in the twenties. Then in the forties and fifties, they're starting to make it a more kid centric holiday. It really spreads across the country as kids go trick or treating on Halloween. That didn't happen until the 50s and 60s. By the 60s, you have it pretty much across the country that people know what trick or treating is and they're going trick or treating.
I think you needed the invention of the fun sized candy bar to really fully optimize.
You joke, but like widespread entertainment, media, TV, commercials, things that can be targeted as, at kids. they get brought into this holiday of oh candy. Okay. So we can make this targeted at kids, have them be like, mom, get me this candy. You can have commercials for that now. Mid century, you're seeing more of the widespread celebrations. And then in the 70s, just like with the rest of the country, there's a lot of unrest after Vietnam. There's a lot of political strife. There's the youth generation versus the older generation, those sorts of feelings. And that's when some of the backlash begins. And that also incorporates the satanic panic and those kinds of fears.
And in the 70s, you have the first murder associated with Halloween candy which is Ronald Clark O'Brien. Now this is a bit of a trivia, no one's ever been poisoned or, anything with Halloween candy by a stranger. That has never actually happened. There's never been an injury from razor blades and apples. Very dubious as to whether there has ever been a stranger giving out razor blade apples.
Sure, but O'Brien, here's one Irishman who was no fun at all.
[00:37:33] Sarah Jack: Oh
[00:37:35] Sean and Carrie: because of this murder who, just to go into it quickly, he was a very sick man who poisoned his own son in Halloween candy to try and get insurance money. But it became an urban legend, the person poisoning the candy, you better check your candy because there could be poison in it. That's when you start getting the sort of darker side of Halloween in terms of the darker side of the fears of the entire culture at the time.
Cause the razor blade thing has.
Never happened.
Never happened.
Yeah. There's been a couple of things where, could this kid have had some sort of drugs? And usually it might've been some thing where they just got into a relative's stash or whatever. And, but no, no kid's ever been poisoned that way, but it became a fear, became parents warning their kids, parents checking their kids' candy, and that was just exactly at the time where we started ramping up to the Satanic Panic of the 80s. So it's really just culture building it on itself. And it's so interesting to see how it has its tentacles in everything, the Vietnam could be directly related to like Halloween PSAs, which you wouldn't think that, but, it's a logical step of the feeling of the entire country turns into the fear associated with this holiday.
And I think the seventies.
There's just a fearful time, there's a lot going on. There's serial killers still, they, from our research, they feel like they were running rampant, I don't know.
Yeah, exactly, yeah. A lot of the serial killers you know about are from the 70s or the early 80s, the economy was on fire, the world had a lot of weird things going on tensions going on. Crime felt The Cold Ward, it was very high. It was a weird time, and so everything just became a little weird. Yeah. Everybody was really afraid of everything. I wasn't alive, but it feels like everybody was really afraid of everything. Yeah.
And even if you were a little religious, my, my parents were not, but I still remember they, they reacted to fears even when I was in, I guess this is like the 90s, early 2000s, very early 2000s, but I remember having, you could go to the police station and get your candy x rayed if you really wanted to. They would always check every piece, make sure anything that had been ripped open, whether it was accidentally or whatever that got thrown out. So they were very paranoid too, and I think it's such a kid-centric holiday. It has to do with kids running around and having fun and being spooked and things like that.
But you also had Stranger Danger. So you're going to stranger's houses and asking for candy, but don't ask for candy from that stranger in the van, a lot of mixed messages, but, and because things were similar in those ways, I think they just got associated with each other. And so Halloween became more of a scary holiday, based on like strangers and things like that, where it hadn't really been before. But that also had to do with kids not really roaming around freely as they did in the 70s and 80s, as time went on, it became much more reined in, I think.
[00:40:55] Josh Hutchinson: And now today it's conspiracy theories and fentanyl in the candy.
[00:41:02] Sean and Carrie: Well, Fenton, yes, and that's a big thing, and a As far as there's nothing for this year, but as of last year, there wasn't any actual fentanyl poisonings and candy or anything like that, but that's just the new razorblades and apples. I, yeah I used to work for a local news station and you get a lot of that kind of stuff rippling through the
Like they're giving out edible gummies to kids. So if you think about why would anyone ever do that? First of all, that costs money, presumably. And then second of all, why do you want to get kids high on edibles? What good does that do? How is that interesting? What does that do for you? No one would ever really do that. And no one has really done that. Kids have gotten into their parents' stuff, and there have been reports of that around Halloween, but there's never been reports of someone giving out pot brownies to trick or treaters just because they wanted to. It's always been, like, relatives and things like that.
Yeah, there's no wrapped Jolly Ranchers that are actually made of fentanyl or anything like that people have to
But you'll see that on Facebook. I'm sure my mom will post something like that this year.
But it seems and I'm sure these fears play into this phenomenon, but it seems the trunk or treat is all the rage now.
Yes, much more popular.
That's the new evolution is the, they'll all just gather in, all the kids gather at the school parking lot or something and and take candy from people. I guess as long as the end result is you get to see your friends and wear a costume and eat some candy.
It feels like it's done real, real quickly just on the parking lot.
Yeah, it's not quite the same adventure. That's for sure.
Yeah.
[00:42:40] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. I would miss the old days of walking for seeming like miles and not caring because you're fueled the whole time.
[00:42:51] Sean and Carrie: Exactly. Trunk or Treat was really past our time, too. That's, I only started hearing about that when my cousin who just graduated college or college, high school was in elementary school. That was the first time I ever heard of that. And I think As kids become more independent in other ways, like with social media, having phones, and they, parents can't necessarily control that aspect of their lives, I think they want them, along with those paranoias about missing children and stuff, they want them roaming around less, and so they want to have an eye on them whenever they're doing trick or treating and things like that. So that's where the trunk or treat comes from.
I have no idea what you're texting about, but do it in my sight.
[00:43:33] Josh Hutchinson: Yes.
[00:43:35] Sean and Carrie: Yeah, it's interesting how the freedom aspect along with the youth culture, it took a steep rise of trick or treating spreading as a tradition throughout the country. And I speak of American culture just because it's so prevalent with Halloween as it is today. It does happen in other countries. But we're number one when it comes to Halloween, we're really into it. So as the freedom rose for kids where they would just bike around, or they would be able to wander by themselves, then that hit a point where, around the 70s, somewhere in there, it just got, there was too much paranoia, there was too much fear, and that, the freedom started to decline to the point where now, yeah, I think trunk or treat is probably more prevalent than trick or treating nowadays, at least from what I've seen in the last couple of years, but we were in a condo, yeah.
I was going to say, I hope not, cause for the first time we're in a house on a street.
I've invested in a lot of candy to give out. So I really hope we get trick or treaters. But yeah, it's definitely gone down in recent years because of these organized events, and I think that has to do with, again, directly, you can chart Satanic Panic to Trunk or Treat, and I think it, you can make a straight line there as to, point A to point B.
[00:44:52] Josh Hutchinson: And then you throw in the pandemic and that throws everything for a loop.
[00:44:57] Sean and Carrie: That's like a new kind of paranoia. They could be giving you bacteria now. And, I think 2021 was the first year where I saw anyone really going trick or treating after, really last year or more, but, you know, UV lights. And um, yeah, it's spraying down originally with the groceries, spraying down the wrap, like the wrapped bag with the Lysol and then letting it sit.
And, it's just another thing to be afraid of.
And Oh, that month when we were leaving our, all our groceries out on the deck for a little while first.
Yeah, Yeah, I saw a lot of the UV lights for Halloween and things like that after COVID because it just, it's another way we adapt the tradition to fit our current fears.
[00:45:46] Sarah Jack: Yeah, that year for a trick, my son was like eight. And so everybody was shooting their candy down these
[00:45:54] Sean and Carrie: Yeah, I
saw that too.
[00:45:56] Sarah Jack: on their,
[00:45:56] Sean and Carrie: Yeah, but Halloween will always make you creative. So there's also the good side of it. There will always be people that want to give treats to kids on Halloween because it makes them happy. And so they're all, there will always be positives with it. But yeah, I think this holiday more than any other, we really uniquely adapt it to our culture, especially in terms of what we're afraid of, because that's what the holiday's about, and so I think it really reflects where we are socially and culturally, every decade or so you can see how it changes to fit those social and cultural changes.
Although it's funny, kids, and this isn't just, I'm not like, kids today, but kids, but when I was a kid, there was a year that we were all Power Rangers, there was a year that, it's not like we're always dressed in, dressed as things that scare us necessarily. You're just like the coolest thing you can think of is everybody gets to be somebody else for the night on Halloween. Yeah. So that's another aspect of it too. And we'll be Bonnie and Clyde this Halloween. That's our plan. Yeah.
[00:47:00] Sarah Jack: Oh. Oh.
[00:47:02] Josh Hutchinson: awesome.
[00:47:03] Sean and Carrie: Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Thank you.
Although we will be posthumous. Yes. They will be dead. You gotta do that with them, I think. But yeah, costumes will always be a thing, but now that there, there are other concerns. There are people wearing costumes into movie theaters and doing bad things. That's our talk. So the, those fears get adapted and some, now you can't wear masks certain places on Halloween and stuff like that, which makes total sense safety wise, but that wasn't something we were concerned about till we were concerned about it.
[00:47:37] Josh Hutchinson: One trend that I'm seeing in Halloween is more travel, especially to places like Salem. I know they had their record year last year with over a million visitors in October, and it's a town of 40,000 or something. And it broke the toilets. So
[00:48:00] Sean and Carrie: Yeah, it's a small city and we love going there because we're only a couple hours away. I usually like to go a couple times a year because it's just a really cool town, even subtracting all the witch stuff, but that's just great frosting on top of the cake for me. But I think it's interesting how culture does inform these things, because I think it started really skyrocketing in terms of insane attendance rates around the time of, weirdly enough, like Hocus Pocus's around 25th anniversary for the movie, because they have a lot of movie-related celebrations and stuff in town, and people started realizing you could go see the the places where they filmed in town for the film Hocus Pocus. I think the people who grew up watching it on Disney Channel, like I did, millennials, now we had the money and the resources to travel to a place because it was in a movie that we loved as a kid. So I think all of that sort of wrapped up together in around like 2015 ish.
And and then, crazy enough, with lockdown, people got really stir crazy after that. And I, I know a couple of people that work in tourism in Salem. My friend Elise runs thingstodoinsalem.com, just got to give her a shout out there, but she said after COVID, you would think it would go down the attendance rates and it's skyrocketed.
Even more than anything related to Hocus Pocus or anything like that. The last couple of years, 2021, 2022 have just been stratospheric. You can't even drive into town barely any day in October anymore, which you used to, it would be busy, but you would be able to drive in and park somewhere. But now you can't do that.
You know how a couple of years ago you didn't know a single person who had been to Iceland and now every fifth American person you meet is like, Oh, have you been to Reykjavik? It's the coolest place.
It's like word of mouth too. Yeah. Oh, I went to Salem and it was like Halloween town for Halloween, and so you gotta go. And then everyone else that's, oh, like I, I have money and I have a car now. I could probably do that.
So many people who go you guys must love Salem. I went there last year for the first time. What a crazy place during October. So I think it's having a moment, for sure.
And I started going yearly around 2015 or so, which is that time that I mentioned, but that was also the time where I happened to be living on my own and Planning my own weekends away. And while I wanted to go to this place that my parents brought me to as a kid, I didn't really understand it then, cause I was like seven years old at the witch museum. But now I wanted to experience it as an adult and appreciate it. On my own time I think a lot of people have had that same thing the last few years, especially with Salem, because at least locally, it's much more easy for people we know to just drive over there.
But even other places have become destinations as well, and I really think it's just because of, certain, generations are really interested in certain things. And my generation likes spooky Hocus Pocusy stuff, so they go to Salem.
[00:51:22] Josh Hutchinson: My parents love to go down to Tombstone for Halloween. They have Helldorado days
[00:51:29] Sean and Carrie: Oh, that
[00:51:30] Josh Hutchinson: they can cosplay as dead cowboys and things like that. So it's a pretty awesome.
[00:51:37] Sean and Carrie: I would love to go to Tombstone generally, but around Halloween is, that sounds like a great idea. I always tell people now that they should go to Salem twice because it is cool to see the October of it all, but you can't even get into museums. Like at that time of year anymore, I say go twice. Go like in the spring, like off season and actually go to the museums and enjoy it without a thousand people in every store. And then go and just experience that Halloween stuff and don't worry about tourism just to experience the celebration because they're very different vibes and very different things.
It's a town that has confronted its, it's very public, ugly history in such a way that it has turned inside out into the most liberal, groovy town you've ever.
Which of course is attractive to a lot of people wanting to party, I'm sure.
So it's yeah I really enjoy our time there.
And they got a cool comic book store, too.
Yeah, that helps.
[00:52:37] Josh Hutchinson: Oh, they do. We were there in May and fortunately May's a good time, especially if you're there in the middle of the week, you can get into anything you want to the middle of the week. And May was my experience where I was there in October in 2016. And yeah,
it
[00:53:00] Sean and Carrie: So crazy. Yeah.
Like, just imagine that I guess probably like times five now. The, just the attendance rates have been astronomical. But yeah, it's a totally different experience. And you're, you go for the history and the actual town itself off season. And then in October, you're going for that Halloween experience that you can only get there.
[00:53:23] Josh Hutchinson: Right, and a lot of people have gone from doing the haunted house to staying in a haunted hotel for Halloween.
[00:53:33] Sean and Carrie: Yes. And that's something that you would think people don't want to stay in haunted rooms. But certain rooms in certain hotels, you have to book years in advance. Salem, just to have a hotel in town, you have to book a year in advance for Halloween season now. It used to just be Halloween that you would have to make sure you had reservations. So now you End of September to early November, you need to book a year in advance if you want to go. And if you want one of the purportedly haunted rooms in the Hawthorne Hotel, then, yeah, good luck.
But there's also more places that offer those sorts of experiences, like the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast. You can... You can go there and sleep in a room that people were murdered in. And those kinds of historic kind of escape room-y but real situations have become a lot more popular as tourist destinations in the last few years.
And those Lizzie Borden people actively seem to advertise to the like, clicky machine ghost adventure set, yeah. They know where their bread is buttered and ghost hunters love going there.
I would love, I would, I, I haven't been, only Carrie has, but I would love to stay at the the Lizzie board.
I haven't stayed, but I've done the tour and it was very educational.
[00:54:53] Josh Hutchinson: I would like to stay there just out of Morbid fascination with the case of, was she an axe murderer? Am I staying in the axe murderer's house? This is interesting.
[00:55:07] Sarah Jack: I know a couple episodes you can listen to find out, Josh.
[00:55:10] Josh Hutchinson: Oh, yes.
[00:55:12] Sean and Carrie: I think I think people have always... It's both a little morbid and maybe the rush reminds us that we're alive, and I think people have pulled pranks since the cavemen's times and people have told scary stories since we had language and we've told ghost stories and stories about monsters and things like that since we've had language.
We've always liked to be a little scared. Controlled scared. Watching a horror movie, you know that's not happening to you. Telling a scary story, you know it's not actually happening around the campfire. So it's like a controlled dose of fear. To sort of, you know, give you that little adrenaline boost, but also reassure you that you're in no real danger. And I think stuff like what it's called dark tourism, the, these sort of spooky tourist places or ghost tours or things like that you're getting close to it, but you're still in control of the fear. And I think that can be very attractive to some people who enjoy that. It's like going on a roller coaster.
Carrie, if I may steal a story from you, an anecdote when you were very young, you, your uncle had a bust of Frankenstein, of, sorry, Frankenstein's monster on his desk, and you were fascinated and frightened, and you terrified me, but I would always sneak into the room and I was only scaring myself. It wasn't that people said I couldn't go into the room, but I would sneak in like I wasn't allowed and I would peek at it and then I would run away, 'cause it was so scary. But you kept creeping in 'cause it was fun to be scared by the bust in a controlled way where you knew once you ran away. Yes.
That's how and I know it's not Frankenstein, but he looks scary. And so it's a little shot of, Ooh, that's scary. And then you run away.
It's not Frankenstein. It's the monster. The creation.
But I think kids are like that, which is also why they respond to Halloween. And I think people, humanity has always been like that. And that's why we all respond to Halloween, even nowadays.
That's very much what our podcast is about, too.
Ain't it scary?
[00:57:22] Sarah Jack: Yeah.
[00:57:23] Josh Hutchinson: Is there anything that you wanted to cover that we haven't talked about today?
[00:57:29] Sean and Carrie: Good question. Yeah we've really gone through all of history, haven't we? My goodness. Yeah, halloween, as it is today, as the Halloween that we're talking about is such a uniquely American holiday and American experience. And this version of Halloween has leached out into other countries now, whereas people, kids dress up and they go trick or treating now in places like the UK and Australia and things like that.
Obviously, there were traditions that we brought with us, but I think because we were such a country of immigrants, and because we were founded on the principle of freedom of religion, that's why all of these traditions from the Celts and the Romans and the Catholics and all these different Americans traditions were allowed to coalesce into this really unique holiday and it's not based on any specific religion. You can be pagan and celebrate Halloween in America, but you could just be nothing and celebrate Halloween. You could be Christian, you could be Jewish, you could, it's not like Christmas which, has its own way of modifying for anyone. But even more Halloween is for everyone. And it's just, it's a really interesting melting pot of all of these traditions that were brought into this country. So I think it's underrated in terms of history. I think you look at Halloween and first of all, this massive timeline of, ancient culture to now, but you also see a real timeline of America and what's important in our culture and what has been important in our culture and how those things have changed, especially related to both our fears and our children the youth of America, because it's such a youth based holiday now.
And so it's just a really fascinating way to, to look at history and look at our culture in a way that you wouldn't expect necessarily, because, you grow up and it's normal to you and it's always there. But when you really take a look at it, you see a little bit of everyone in it.
Especially 2 Charlie Chaplins, and 2 Iron Man.
And to Gingerbread Man.
[00:59:45] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer
[00:59:49] Sarah Jack: Join us next week.
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[01:00:26] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great Halloween and a beautiful fall.

Witches in Popular Culture with Maya Rook

October 26th, 2023

Witches in Popular Culture with Maya Rook – Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast

Welcome back cultural historian Maya Rook. October is a great opportunity to discuss the portrayals of witches in pop culture, witchcraft and magic. Enjoy this fun and reflective episode as we consider the witch in pop culture over time, how she is rooted in Greek Mythology, and her stereotypes and tropes. How are her powers centered within the domestic sphere? Where did we get our image of the good witch? Of the bad witch? What does the future hold for the pop culture witch? Why are men wizards and women witches?Salem Oracle by Maya RookIllusory Time by Maya RookPetition to recognize those accused of witchcraft in MassachusettsList of those accused of witchcraft in MassachusettsEnd Witch Hunts Support the showSupport Us! Sign up as a Super ListenerSupport the show

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Show Notes

Salem Oracle by Maya Rook

Illusory Time by Maya Rook

Petition to recognize those accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts
List of those accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts

End Witch Hunts

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Transcript

[00:00:10] Josh Hutchinson: Hello, and welcome to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
[00:00:16] Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. Today, we're excited to share a conversation we had with historian and friend of the show, Maya Rook, about portrayals of the witch in popular culture.
[00:00:26] Josh Hutchinson: We had a great time talking with Maya about how the witch has been depicted over the generations.
[00:00:32] Sarah Jack: From classical Greeks to modern Americans, people have both loved and reviled witch characters.
[00:00:38] Josh Hutchinson: Witches can be good or bad, or increasingly a little of both.
[00:00:43] Sarah Jack: What lessons can be learned from Sabrina the Teenage Witch and her fellow pop culture witches?
[00:00:49] Josh Hutchinson: And what does the future hold for popular representations of the witch?
[00:00:54] Sarah Jack: Welcome back, Maya Rook, cultural historian, educator, and host of Illusory Time and Salem Oracle. Maya is vibrant, creative, playful, humorous, delightful, informative, and you will appreciate the perspectives she brings to this topic today.
Let's start talking a little bit about our favorite pop culture witches. Maya, do you have a favorite pop culture witch?
[00:01:16] Maya Rook: I do have a favorite, and it is Sabrina the Teenage Witch, specifically the show with Melissa Joan Hart that started airing in 1996. So she always just comes up for me. I love so many pop culture witches, but I was at like the prime age when that was released, and I just was fascinated by the show. I loved it. I watched it until I grew out of it. But I've returned to it as an adult, and I think that it really keeps up, holds up, and I really love that one.
[00:01:45] Josh Hutchinson: I like that one a lot, too. Yeah, Sabrina and I like Hermione. It's a pop culture witch. There's some others we're thinking about, like Mary Poppins isn't always considered a witch, but she's very magical. And Bedknobs and Broomsticks, that witch is really good. Those are a few that I like.
[00:02:09] Sarah Jack: I love Morgana from the TV series Merlin. I love her transformation over the series. Unfortunately, it's from good to bad, but I don't know if that is unfortunate. It's a real, real important thread through the story, but I have enjoyed that character.
[00:02:27] Josh Hutchinson: Who else do you think of when you think pop culture witch? Who are the most iconic?
[00:02:34] Maya Rook: That is such a challenging question, because there are so many pop culture witches, and I think, and depending on who you ask, they're going to have that one person or group of people come into their minds, but I think of even just like the Weird Sisters from Macbeth. You have the three witches around the bubbling cauldron that is such an iconic image that continues to impact us to this day, and then we see different iterations even from that. We have the Sanderson sisters and Hocus Pocus, which I think a lot of people would say, iconic witches right there in pop culture.
We also have The Wizard of Oz, and I think that within that, the creation of Glinda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West are both incredibly iconic. Samantha Stevens in Bewitched, for so many people that's their witch that they think of. Of course for me, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and then you have other teen witches as well, so thinking about The Craft, we get into kind of a little more dark witchcraft there. We have the sisters that show up in Practical Magic, and there's Charmed, the television show. You already mentioned Hermione from Harry Potter, right? The Witches of Eastwick is another big one.
I don't know, I feel like I could just name witches forever, but those were the top, I think, ten that showed up for me when I thought iconic pop culture witch.
[00:03:55] Josh Hutchinson: We talk about Hermione being an iconic witch. Why don't we talk about Harry Potter as being an iconic witch? Is it because the label is wizard for him?
[00:04:08] Maya Rook: Yeah, I think so, right? Because he's a he, because he's a male and is referred to as a wizard so much, I think that he doesn't really pop up into people's minds when we think iconic witch. Although we have witches in pop culture or, in the past, where men would be considered witches, for the most part it's associated with women. So I think that's really where our minds are still going to go to this day is we're going to look for the female character that's associated with magic. And in that case, we have Hermione, who is amazing.
[00:04:40] Josh Hutchinson: So there's still like a strong demarcation between here's a wizard and here's a witch and they're not the same thing.
[00:04:49] Maya Rook: Yeah, I think so. I was thinking about that, and we have different representations of wizards, but a lot of the times when I think when we hear the word wizard, what comes to mind often is like an older, white, male wizard with a long beard and the like pointy hat, maybe it has stars on it. A lot of times they're associated more with good magic, and I think when we have witches, we tend to imagine women. And now we have a lot more representations of good witches and bad witches, but I think the sort of stereotype that's left over really from the European witch trials and the witch hunting texts is that it's more negative. They're associated with harmful magic, darker magic. And I think that we're still impacted by that to this day.
[00:05:39] Sarah Jack: Do you think the portrayal of witches in pop culture instill fear, or do you think it takes away fear?
[00:05:49] Maya Rook: Both. And I think it really depends on what era we're looking at. So if we trace the trajectory of pop culture witches, we see this shift happening. I mentioned the European witch trials, the witch hunting texts, the images of witches that are created during that time. We're talking hundreds of years where this is really taking ahold of people's imaginations. And it's, it is very negative. And that, at that point in time is very much going to instill fear. And as the two of you and many of your listeners know very well, it instills fear to the point of persecution and execution, right? So the popular image of the witch ends up having this huge impact on people's everyday lives, on society as a whole, that is very fearful and negative.
You go through time, obviously, to get away from the witch trials within Europe and America. We have fairy tales and folk tales of witches, also often very negative. Hansel and Gretel, don't wander off into the woods, because the witch might get you and try to lure you in with their magic and eat you and all that good stuff.
But I really think that this shift happens that splits with The Wizard of Oz. When we get that good witch, Glinda the Good Witch, which, she's not instilling fear for most people, I would hope, right? She is this benevolent witch who's there to help Dorothy. And then you have the Wicked Witch of the West, who is really, in a lot of ways, left over from those negative stereotypes, and that's the one that you fear. So depending on sort of which of those two witches you trace, you can either get that fear, or you can get something that actually could help release fear.
As we get into the 20th century, we have people like Samantha Stevens from Bewitched, we have good teen witches like Sabrina, other fun kind of pop culture witches, as well, and all of those might be seen actually as a form of empowerment or play or this ability to have a good time with magic and be able to manipulate and control your world from a place of goodness rather than from a place that's pulling from a darker magic.
[00:07:58] Josh Hutchinson: How do you think the portrayal of witches in pop culture affects our understanding of practicing witches?
[00:08:06] Maya Rook: Yes, I think that there's a couple layers there, because the portrayal of witches in pop culture can be for a lot of people your entryway, what sparks your interest. And especially, I think the younger you are, because. And I think that's, you see this, you're fascinated by it. It's oh, this witch can wiggle their finger and then make everything change around them, or they can manipulate their environment. They can have a little more control over their relationships, even their own well being. So it's very enticing. So I think that it could actually draw people to want to explore what is witchcraft and what is magic and what is my own magic. But then I think that the other aspect of it is because that portrayal, it almost is so fantastical and it's external. You see when Sabrina the Teenage Witch, she waves her finger and then sparks will fly out of it and something will happen. But that's not going to happen in our real day to day lives. Real witchcraft, real magic, in a lot of ways, is very ordinary, and it doesn't have such a big, flashy show, and it can take a lot of work to tap into and trust in yourself.
So I think that it doesn't always show us the reality that if you want to practice magic, there's going to have to be a lot of inner exploration, and that some things might just actually be ordinary and boring, but you are tapping into your own power.
[00:09:32] Sarah Jack: I was thinking how some of the challenges or a lot of the challenges that they show Sabrina facing are actual challenges that other girls, boys are facing at that age. And so as you referred to looking into yourself and for your solutions. Hopefully, that those kind of examples can push people to see that in the ordinary there is solutions, that you do have power and strength from your own gifts, as well as your witchcraft interests.
[00:10:06] Maya Rook: Sabrina makes so many mistakes as she's navigating, learning her magic, and I think that's really great, because any teenager, any person coming of age, any human being is gonna make mistakes, they're gonna screw up, but they're able to do it in a way that's very comical. It's set up in that format for a sitcom. Or there's always a lesson that's learned from it, and I think you get this glimpse also that it doesn't actually matter how much magical powers you might have, that there's still going to be opportunities to learn, to grow, and that sometimes the magic is not what's going to be what will save you. It has to be your ability to like talk and communicate with people or share what's going on or ask for help or whatever it is. So all of that is intertwined into those episodes as she's navigating her world.
[00:10:56] Josh Hutchinson: What are some other lessons that we can learn from Sabrina and other witches?
[00:11:03] Maya Rook: I think that one of the biggest lessons we can pull from observing witches and the portrayal of witchcraft in pop culture is that there's more than meets the eye in our day to day lives. I think that it's a reminder that there is something that's like powerful and magical that can be beneath the surface, that you can have that idea of peeling back of the veil and there's another layer, there's another experience to the world around us or to people's abilities.
So a lot of times in pop culture, we have the witches who are very clearly witches, and they have the pointy black hat and they're supposed to look like haggard and just very obvious. They're around the cauldron. They're witches.
But then we have the witches that look really ordinary. They look like everyday people. And I think that a lesson there is this reminder that when we encounter people, we meet somebody, we don't actually know what's beneath it. We don't know who they are. And there could be, and a lot of times there is, this like immense insight, wisdom, power that's beneath them. And it could be something that they're hiding from the world. Because a lot of times these witches that we've mentioned, they're out and about in their day to day life, and they're not revealing to anybody the powers that they have. So yeah, I think that's what stands out to me the most as a larger lesson of like, there's more than meets the eye.
[00:12:24] Sarah Jack: The powers that we find in pop culture, where do they come from or where do they get their power?
[00:12:31] Maya Rook: Yeah, so I think that the power of flight is one that we definitely see, again, rooted back in the witch hunting texts that are coming out during the European witch trials. So we're talking about things that are starting really in the 1400s, and we start to hear messages about that witches can fly in the night. We see images coming out of like woodcuts and paintings, where we see witches on broomsticks, or they're flying through the air in some way. So I think that when we see that today or throughout the 20th and 21st century, the image of the witch on the broom flying through the air, all of it can really be, I believe, rooted back to that moment in time.
And I don't know. I think that it's probably a very enticing power to think about. If you could have the power to do anything, the idea that you could levitate and that you could fly in the air and that you could have that kind of control over something that other people can't and have that ability to fly around. I feel like a lot of people would take advantage of that if they could.
[00:13:39] Josh Hutchinson: I'd definitely be up there all the time, no hiding it, just look what I can do.
[00:13:45] Maya Rook: Yeah, I have the ability to lucid dream, and oftentimes, when I do tap into a lucid dream, one of the first things I start doing is flying, because why wouldn't I? Like, What else am I going to do? Okay, well, it is it's really fun. Something I will say that I love about, again, because I know we're going to keep coming to bring this back to Sabrina the Teenage Witch, vacuum cleaners. So they update it in the show when she's introduced to flying, she assumes it's going to be on brooms, but they actually use vacuum cleaners, and it's this really just quirky, fun, modern touch of why would we use an old-fashioned broom when we could use the modern vacuum cleaner to fly around in the air? And just one of those like silly moments that they put into the show.
[00:14:28] Josh Hutchinson: It evoked also Hocus Pocus 2, where they use a Swiffer and some Roombas.
[00:14:36] Maya Rook: Yes, I forgot about that.
[00:14:38] Josh Hutchinson: So yet another upgrade to keep up with the technology. But it's still rooted in that domestic sphere, which women were limited to during the witch hunting era in Europe and North America.
[00:14:59] Maya Rook: I think that's a great point, and I think that we do see a lot of that sort of domestication of the witch happening, as well, and some of the, if we're you know, want to still look at some of their powers, this connection there but following Glinda the Good Witch, I see that as this good witch lineage in the 20th century. And then all the witches that tend to be good witches are usually somehow associated somewhere in the household. So we have Samantha and Bewitched, and she's navigating okay, suburban housewife, and being a witch, what's the line between that? And then we have Sabrina, again, living in the suburbs, like a lot of her life takes place in the house with her aunts. They're in this domestic sphere, the vacuums, as we mentioned before, the flying on brooms.
I think that we also see, again, tracing back to the European witch trials, some of the things associated with witches take place in that world. I'm thinking of the Malleus Maleficarum, and this one story that's told in there about, there's some fear around midwives, and they're talking about how if a witch who is a midwife helps a woman give birth, they might pretend like the baby is dead so that they can take it away, or they might bring it, describing bringing it into the kitchen, holding it up by the fire, and offering it up to the devil.
And that is all the domestic sphere, that's all the women's world, what they're associated with. And it's being almost inverted in some way. Instead of the power of being by the hearth and the fire as this place to create life, it's then being associated with this darkness, right? So they are inverting their relationship with domesticity. And also some of the crimes they were associated with, infertility, miscarriages, the killing and the eating of babies, as well as even things like crops failing, livestock falling ill, all of that kind of has to do with instead of creating life and helping it to flourish, making it diminish.
So those are some of the more negative aspects associated with it. But I feel like that idea of rooting things in the domestic world we see continued throughout that whole trace of pop culture witches.
[00:17:11] Josh Hutchinson: And I was thinking the the Malleus was basically the pop culture of its day, so that's another pop culture portrayal of witches. Unfortunately, it's a very devastating one with real consequences.
[00:17:29] Maya Rook: I'll say one more thing about the powers of witches that we see, because the ones that I've mentioned so far, really, I think we see strongly in the European witch trials, but in the Western world, we can go back even further, and I do see some aspects of magic and witchcraft rooted in Greek mythology that we still see today.
So Hecate comes to mind, and Hecate was the goddess of nocturnal sorcery and crossroads and threshold boundaries, those kind of areas in between. And she was able to go between the mortal and the divine spheres. So she could go between the underworld and the earth. And even It's kind of funny that I see Sabrina going between those two worlds as well, right? Because she's half witch and she's half mortal, so she's straddling that line. And then Hecate was also associated with certain herbs, which of course we see to this day, the idea of like witches and witchcraft being able to have an herbal magic and be able to make potions and things like that. And then Hecate's daughter, Circe, had the ability to transform humans into animals. So most famously, probably in The Odyssey she transforms the men into swine. And you usually have a magic wand or a staff that was associated with that power. And so I think we still see echoes of that that come through the witch trials all the way up to the present day.
[00:18:51] Sarah Jack: The shape changing's one of my favorite portrayals of witchcraft. It's, sometimes it's very light hearted and fun, sometimes it's very deceitful and there's trickery. But yeah, I really enjoy the shape shifting. I don't shape shift. Yet.
[00:19:11] Josh Hutchinson: Working on it, though
[00:19:12] Maya Rook: Keep trying!
[00:19:13] Josh Hutchinson: Practice makes perfect.
[00:19:16] Sarah Jack: Alrighty.
[00:19:16] Josh Hutchinson: I'm glad you brought up the Greeks because when we think pop culture witch, of course we often think in today's terms of who's a 20th, 21st century witch, but witches have been in pop culture ever since there was basically writing, stories being told.
[00:19:40] Maya Rook: Yeah, absolutely. I think that it's important to remember that humans all over the world have long believed in magic, right? It doesn't matter what culture you're in, what society, there's usually some notion that There's a magic in the world, there's an ability to manipulate the world around you, and that certain people hold that power and that ability. So the name for what that is can change over time and, depending on the culture, but there's usually somebody that you can make a parallel as being a witch.
[00:20:12] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. We had Owen Davies on recently talking about The Art of the Grimoire, and there's grimoires back from 3000 BC, 4000 BCE. So witches have been in literature for thousands and thousands of years, and it's really interesting to watch this metamorphosis over time. You talked about how Hecate and Circe and then up to the Malleus, where the witch in European culture is this very malevolent figure, to now We have good witches and bad witches, but where do you think the witch is going in the future in pop culture?
[00:21:00] Maya Rook: That's really fascinating to think about. I don't think that we will tire of witches in pop culture, especially considering, as you just said, 3,000 years, 3000 BCE, I think you said, we have evidence of witches in pop culture, right? So they're not going to go anywhere. I think that we'll continue to navigate that and keep the witch, the person who has that ability to manipulate the world around them through that power. It'll continue.
How will it change? I think that more and more people are publicly Considering themselves witches and sharing what their connection is with magic and witchcraft in more public spheres. There's people talk about witchtok, witches on TikTok who share what they're doing, and, of course, across all social media, you have similar things happening. I think that's going to end up influencing the future of witches and pop culture. In some ways, it might become a little bit more normal, so we might start seeing films that are just otherwise just regular, a comedy or a drama, the story has nothing to do with witchcraft, but maybe there'll be a character in it who's just oh they're a witch. It's just normal. It's part of who is in our society, who's in our culture. And it might start being portrayed maybe even in a more positive light, maybe like a little more fun, a little more playful, perhaps more stuff for children but yeah, it's hard to tell.
People will never tire, though, of the evil witch. I am such a big fan of horror films, and I feel like, there's no way that you could have a lot of horror films out there. They need that dark character.
[00:22:44] Josh Hutchinson: For sure. But I liked what you said about normalizing portrayals of witchcraft and modern which practices just to see, they're just your neighbor. They're whoever regular people in your family and like practicing any other faith.
[00:23:04] Maya Rook: With the witchtok and the Instagram witches and stuff, I think it's fascinating to watch, and at the same time, it makes me also a little bit nervous of a watering down that could happen, or just doing it for the show of it, and I think that any spiritual practice in a lot of ways is more, a lot of the meaning is coming from your personal connection to it. That doesn't mean it's going to be lost if you share it with other people in a public setting, but I think people have to be careful about that too, because, if you're just doing something because you're like I have to create content and I've created this following and I'm going to do it, then what's your motivation behind are you is your intention really there to do this spell, to do whatever it is, or are you just trying to get likes and followers?
Maybe that's not what you think you're doing, but that's how it ends up unraveling for yourself. And so I think it's probably important for people to remember, if they go into that world, to check themselves and make sure they're really coming from a place of this is my spirituality, this is my practice and really considering what it is that they're showing the world.
[00:24:09] Josh Hutchinson: Instead of just making it flashy, putting in all the trappings of excitement, what is the actual practice that means something to you as a person, as a creator? That's a good point, too.
[00:24:27] Sarah Jack: I was really curious who your favorite horror film witch character is.
[00:24:32] Maya Rook: I really love The Witch that came out in, what was that, 2015 or so? I just find that a fascinating film. I was so excited when it came out. I had done so much research on the Puritans of the Mass Bay Colony, obviously the Salem Witch Trials, and I went to that movie and I felt like I was being really brought into 17th century New England.
I felt like I was really there with that family, even the way that they spoke to each other. It was the way that it looked, the dynamic, all of it just felt so real and captivating to me and then to watch the main character and her storyline unfold, and this potential, this fear around magic, this fear around the devil, and her sort of luring that comes into it, and then by the end, spoiler alert, for anybody who hasn't seen The Witch, pause this, go watch it, come back.
But to see her kind of give in to that power in the end is this really beautiful, incredible moment. And I just absolutely loved it. I've watched that movie several times now and I feel like it just doesn't get old to, to watch that unraveling.
[00:25:45] Sarah Jack: It's so crazy that you just said unravel because I was literally going to say the film is showing like the unraveling of the mother, of the faith, they were just really striving. They were there, spoiler alert, in the woods because of their strong, stubborn beliefs and they wanted to have things the way they wanted it. But then that's unraveling for them and then she's like blooming into this character. It's so intense.
[00:26:20] Josh Hutchinson: Thomasin is another person who doesn't feature a lot in conversations when I was looking around the internet, who are the top pop culture witches. She doesn't feature there, but that's cited as a top witch movie. So it's interesting that she's not thought of in that light.
[00:26:43] Maya Rook: Yeah, she in some ways doesn't have, you have to really get to the end of her story to see her as a witch when she's levitating in the air at the end. And I think that it doesn't have that same flashiness as when we think of like the Sanderson sisters from Hocus Pocus, right? But it's still really powerful and it's interesting. Yeah, she doesn't usually, Thomas and we're like, oh yeah, Thomasin the witch. It's like we think of her as a character and we think of the movie, which is called The Witch, but at the same time, it's like yeah, she doesn't stand out. But I think it's absolutely one of the best portrayals of witches and witchcraft that we have in popular culture and specifically, as you asked about in horror films, I think it's pretty high up there.
[00:27:24] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, another thing Sarah and I were talking about the other day. In The Witch, there is the older woman in the woods that's tempting her so that person is more or less the villain of the feature, other than uh, Black Phillip, depending on your opinion about him. But is it always an older figure targeting a younger figure when it comes to the villains?
[00:27:57] Maya Rook: That's a great question. My instinct is, yeah, it seems like it usually is somebody who's older. I think, I also feel like in cases where it seems like it's somebody who's younger, that it always ends up that they are actually older, the skin comes off and it's revealed they are actually much older, and they're just manipulating the way they look, so yeah, I think you might be onto something there, that it's typically an older witch villain, whatever, that is bringing and luring in the younger into their world.
[00:28:31] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah, we're thinking even, you go back to the fairy tales, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, it's an older person stealing youth, either they want to eat the youth or they went to somehow capture it for themselves. And that seems to carry forward, Harry Potter's a school student and Voldemort. Oops, I said his name. He's obviously the older adult preying on children. So it seems like that Hansel and Gretel kind of role is still going on.
[00:29:10] Maya Rook: Yeah, absolutely, I'd agree. I'll have to think on it, though, and see if I can come up with any examples, like, where there's a younger witch luring an older person. It might be out there, but it could take some time to find it.
[00:29:23] Josh Hutchinson: Yeah. Another thing we were curious about, and don't know if there's been research done into this, but how many of a witch's victims are female versus how many are male? We see a lot of older women going after younger women or girls.
[00:29:42] Maya Rook: Yeah. When you ask that question, what it first makes me think of is that we see, I believe, a lot of times, with the older witch, it's and they're approaching a younger girl might be to actually lure them also into witchcraft, but when they're approaching men, a younger man, it's usually, there might be something sexual there. The older witch might be getting something out of it, pleasure for themselves, but then they discard the man or harm him in some way. So it seems almost a using and a violence against men and then like a bringing in, a manipulation and a bringing in of women into the world of witches and witchcraft.
[00:30:23] Sarah Jack: That initiation.
[00:30:25] Maya Rook: Initiation. Yeah,
[00:30:26] Sarah Jack: Do you think there are any witches in pop culture that challenge traditional stereotypes?
[00:30:31] Maya Rook: So when I do a lot of my work on pop culture witches, and I do usually culminate it with Sabrina the Teenage Witch I always see that household as really challenging some gender stereotypes and the way that a household is created, because there's really no men in that house, right? We have the two aunts, so we have this kind of alternative lifestyle. Neither of them are married. For a lot of the show, they're not even really in relationships, so they will be, but they're not like center stage. So we have the two sisters who are leading the household, and then they're raising their niece, right? Not even their child. So that's not a typical, standard house. And then the one male that you have in the household is a warlock who's, he has to live in the body of a cat for a hundred years because he tried to take over the world. So the man who's in the house has pretty much no power, always trying to get it, but he's dependent on everybody around him. So I think it really flips a lot of the what we think about in terms of gender and power in a typical domestic environment.
I'm also thinking about which witches buck the stereotype of a witch, and at this point we just have so many different images of witches, I'm like I feel like our pop culture just holds a lot of different representations that it would be challenging now to think of one in this moment of time that would somehow be going against what's already been created. It's possible out there, but I think we'd have to almost go back and think about, okay, what was the stereotype in this moment of time, what shifted it? And to me, that always comes back to Glinda the Good Witch as being that pivotal moment where the change happens.
[00:32:15] Sarah Jack: Is there a tie with Glinda's image and portrayal and fairies, fairy godmothers?
[00:32:23] Maya Rook: I do think so, especially in the way that she is presented in the film. I think it really pulls on that image of the fairy godmother being more benevolent, caring, showing up in that moment to be of service and to help whoever the protagonist is, in this case, Dorothy. But it's really interesting, L. Frank Baum, when he wrote The Wizard of Oz, his mother-in-law was Matilda Joslyn Gage. And she was an early suffragist and feminist before people were even really talking about those things. And she was also an early researcher of the witch trials and one of the first people to say this was an attack on women.
And so we're talking about somebody writing and researching and talking about this in the 1800s, late 1800s. She was also involved in spiritualism, so engaged in things like seances, and she was part of the Theosophical Society, so she was in touch with the world of magic, and she was very close with L. Frank Baum, so mother-in-law to L. Frank Baum, and it seems as though she had a pretty big influence on him. They talked about a lot of stuff, and a lot of people believe that she influenced his perception on witches and witchcraft, and that when he wrote The Wizard of Oz, because of that connection with Matilda Joslyn Gage, that he created this character that went against the stereotypes that were left over from the witch trials, and he had both of them included.
So I think that she's this kind of more unknown person, but I think has incredibly impacted our understanding of witches today and especially from that portrayal of Glinda the Good Witch.
[00:34:05] Josh Hutchinson: I'm so glad you brought that up.
[00:34:07] Sarah Jack: Me too. I'm wondering, and I'm thinking, of course, from the film perspective, what's the significance to the wizard just being an ordinary man?
[00:34:19] Maya Rook: Yeah, the wizard. And again, we talked about wizards before, right? They're like older, male, they're usually have, good magic and whatnot. And in this, yeah, he has no real, all his power is a facade and eventually has to admit that he's just manipulating people and almost doing little tricks to get people to believe that he's powerful, and people do, they do believe it, but it falls apart eventually, right? The man behind the curtain. And of course, in the story, that is this really important moment because it, for the characters, shines this light on they always had those qualities within them and so that power laid within. But yeah, it is interesting that you have this powerful male figure, but then turns out actually is just, just like an ordinary guy.
[00:35:14] Sarah Jack: So then I have another question. You've got, courage is found, the brain, the heart. Those weren't just people. They were made up characters. I wonder what, why he went that direction with those who found their, the lion finding his courage, so maybe, I don't know.
[00:35:34] Maya Rook: Yeah. I wonder... It could just be that it was like a kid's story, and he wanted to create a fantastical world in, they don't show this in the movie, but in the book, the Tin Man started off as a real person. So the Tin Man chopping wood cut off his foot and it gets replaced and it cuts off part of his leg as well, so eventually he becomes this Tin Man and I, it's a little bit fuzzy in my mind, but I think part of it is that he had been in love with a woman and by the time that it gets to the point of his heart being replaced, he can no longer have that love.
So coming back and that very much could be representative of the time. We have industrialization, we have people who are working more and more in factories, and a stripping down of people's humanity, and so a reminder that people aren't tin men, they're not robots, they're not just there to do work, but they actually have a heart within them that we have to remember that.
[00:36:29] Josh Hutchinson: What do you think are some common stereotypes of witches, some tropes that we see in pop culture?
[00:36:39] Maya Rook: One that we've been coming back to is definitely that witches are typically seen as women. Think of a witch, depict a witch, a lot of times it is a woman, it's a female character, and I really do think in that case we can look at some of the statistics from the witch trials and see that when the witch trials began, about half the people accused were men, half the people accused were women, and then over that course of 400 or so years, by the end, 80 percent of the people who are accused and executed are women. So that shift, it takes some time, but by the end of it, I think it's really solidified that this belief that women are the ones who are associated with the magic, with the witchcraft, and the potential to be witches. So that's one of the largest.
Other common tropes, I would say, spells and incantations oftentimes Creating potions, so that image of the cauldron will be associated, that's another common one. Potentially, you have the solitary witch, but a lot of times you do have the coven of witches as well. So usually, in that case, there'd be three witches who are doing their magic together, flying, especially broomsticks, trying to think of some other ones.
That, the eating of children, we get that in Hocus Pocus, we get that in the European Witch Trials, and we get that as well in Roald Dahl's The Witches, so that's one of the main motivations is is it that they want to eat the children or they want to just kill them? They want to rid the world of children, that's what it is, and so they try to use their magic as a way to essentially they want to turn the children into mice, I believe. It's been a while since I read or watched that one, but this anti-child trope, I think, for the evil witch comes up a lot.
Oh, and they have familiars. So that is another major trope for all witches, I think, good or bad is that they have a familiar. Originally, familiars were believed to be domesticated demons in the shape of an animal. So it could be a dog, it could be a cat, a snake, a frog, or something like that. And then a lot of times in the present day, familiars are seen, not so much as demons, but, as a companion that has a relationship with the witch and that maybe their sort of powers help one another. And that was a big shift in the Sabrina the Teenage Witch with Melissa Joan Hart, because Salem is there, so he's like the familiar in that case, the cat.
And then in the new version, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, where things get a lot darker and more occult, more satanic, they bring back that idea of the domesticated demon. So she gets Salem. She gets a cat, but it is actually supposed to be a demon in the shape of a cat rather than, a friend, essentially.
[00:39:27] Sarah Jack: I haven't had a chance to watch that. I was curious, do they, how does the Book of Shadows represent different in that series? Does it?
[00:39:37] Maya Rook: I cannot... I can't remember. I did go back and watch the first couple episodes. It's been a while since I saw The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. So I'm not remembering. Really specifically what happens with the Book of Shadows. I will say one thing I know about the show is that, it's not the Book of Shadows, but they, it's like the devil's book that they have to sign.
In Sabrina the Teenage Witch, in the 90s television show, their power is definitely not coming from Satan, it's coming from like an unknown source, but that's clearly a fairly good or neutral source that it's coming from, but then in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, for her to become a witch when she's 16, she does need to sign the devil's Book and give herself over to the dark lord. So they really hearken back to the image that was created during the Witch Trials, and I think that's a major difference between the two.
[00:40:36] Sarah Jack: Oh yeah, I'm surprised there's any room in that book after all the witch trials and signing that was going on.
[00:40:42] Maya Rook: Yeah, it's magical, right? So maybe just more pages just keep getting created.
[00:40:47] Josh Hutchinson: think so. And they used a lot of different writing surfaces in the witch trial accounts of that. So they must have just pieced it together in a big three-ring binder or something. He's got a scrapbook, the devil's scrapbook. Anyways.
[00:41:05] Sarah Jack: Is there anything else that you'd like to be sure to speak to you about this topic or Sabrina or any of it?
[00:41:14] Maya Rook: I feel like as we consume pop culture, just remembering, it's to have fun with it, and then have a little bit of a discriminating eye and see what might be laying beneath the surface and what it can tell us about who we are as individuals and our society as a whole.
And I'm very curious, since you asked that question about the future of witches and pop culture, how that's going to unfold, right? And what it's going to tell us about generations as they're growing and changing and as our society changes, as well. I think that our perception of witches will be an insight into it.
[00:41:51] Sarah Jack: And now, for a minute with Mary.
[00:41:54] Mary Bingham: We already know the Puritans look to counter magic for protection, the shoe in the wall, the horseshoe over the doorway. But what about a witch cake? And why bake this awful concoction and feed it to the dog? It seems evident that Tituba loved Betty Parris and Abigail Williams. She was so concerned for their well being, as she was probably horrified while witnessing seizure like symptoms the girls experienced. Not even a doctor could diagnose their illness, saying that the girls were "under an evil hand." Tituba decided to take matters into her own hands and called upon the help of the Parris family neighbor, Mary Sibley. They baked that cake, made out of some type of flour, most likely rye or barley meal, they mixed it with the girl's urine and ashes from the hearth, and they fed it to the dog.
I once believed that the dog had somehow identified who was bewitching the girls, but was this actually the reason for the two women to bake the cake? The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology by Russell Hope Robbins states that if the witch cake is fed to the dog and the dog shakes, the afflictions, be they fevers or shivering fits, would be cured.
So this makes me wonder, could Tituba have wanted to find out who was bewitching the girls? Did she think she was offering a cure for their symptoms? Or both? I will let the listener decide. Thank you.
[00:43:32] Sarah Jack: Thank you, Mary.
[00:43:35] Josh Hutchinson: Here's Sarah with End Witch Hunts News.
[00:43:38] Sarah Jack: Thou Shalt Not Suffer podcast and End Witch Hunts collaborate on the Massachusetts Witch Hunt Justice Project and will work earnestly for all names to be cleared and for all lawmakers and global leaders to become better educated about witch hunts past and present. Lawmakers of any party can support legislation that has a real and resounding local and global impact. Other countries need to see us take a deliberate stand for alleged witches in our history with expressed concern for stopping alleged witchcraft violence today. Official state acknowledgement of the innocency of the 17th century accused and hanged witches from the American colonies resounds globally.
Thank you, State of Connecticut, for officially apologizing to all your known witch trial victims. Thank you, Massachusetts, for beginning the work of exoneration by addressing the injustice against those convicted in the 1692 Salem Witch Trials. But, it's time to begin the work to acknowledge the injustice of those convicted in Boston between 1648 and 1688.
Massachusetts, it's time to stand with Connecticut and include all those who suffered in your colony in an official apology. It's time to acknowledge the absolute innocence of all those accused of witchcraft and the injustices committed against them.
[00:44:49] Josh Hutchinson: Thank you so much, Sarah.
[00:44:51] Sarah Jack: You're welcome, Josh.
[00:44:53] Josh Hutchinson: And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.
[00:44:57] Sarah Jack: Join us again next week.
[00:45:00] Josh Hutchinson: Review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:45:04] Sarah Jack: Visit us at thoushaltnotsuffer.com.
[00:45:07] Josh Hutchinson: Tell all your friends and family about the show.
[00:45:11] Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more about volunteering and donating.
[00:45:19] Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.

Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast

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Category: episode

Ain’t it a Scary Halloween with Sean and Carrie

Ain't it a Scary Halloween with Sean and Carrie – Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast

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