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Episode 94: A Witch's Familiar
733 Plays1 year ago
Welcome back Witches! If you thought this episode was going to be cute and cuddly like we did, then boy were you wrong. This episode is going to take a deep dive into what a witch's familiar actually is, and spoiler alert... it's not your precious fur baby. So get in losers, and let's discuss A Witch's Familiar.
We would be forever thankful if you left our podcast a 5-Star review. If you really loved the show and want more Get in Loser content, check out our Supercast & Buy Me a Coffee links below. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @GetinWitches, on TikTok @weredoingwitchcraft, or email us at weredoingwitchcraft@gmail.com. You can support our show through our links below.
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Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio- The Witch
References:
- Holly. What a Witch’s Familiar Is- and Isn’t. Wayfinder Tarot. https://wayfindertarot.com/witch-familiar/
- Leafloor, Liz. Bad Company? Witch Familiars, Spirit Guardians, & Demons. (2021). Ancient Origins. https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/witch-familiars-spirit-guardians-and-demons-006261
- Wiggington, Patti. What is a Pagan Animal Familiar? (2018). Learn Religions. https://www.learnreligions.com/what-is-an-animal-familiar-2562343
- Clover, Louise (2020). Get to Know your familiar. Wicca Academy. https://wiccaacademy.com/get-to-know-your-familiar/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Witchcraft Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Do you feel drawn to learn more about witchcraft and the occult that feel lost on where to start? Then welcome to Get In Loser, We're Doing Witchcraft, a podcast all about what it means to be a witch and where to get started on your journey. Join us as we navigate through various witchy topics and share what we have learned about the craft. So get in witches
Exploring Familiars
00:00:16
Speaker
as we delve deep into the fascinating world of familiars, exploring the bonds between witches and their companions.
00:00:36
Speaker
Bye!
00:00:41
Speaker
Um, also, just to preface this episode, if you've listened to the palmistry one, which we recorded just five minutes ago, I'm sick. I'm sick. It's actually going on in my house. My house is empty. My dogs are losing their shit over it. So there's a lot of background noise. Same thing as last week's episode, just all over again. Okay. Yeah, except for now her voice is like, basically shot. So she sounds like a little old lady. I promise she hasn't morphed into a little old lady.
00:01:11
Speaker
is just around the corner, but I'm not that old. We need to get you the soul of little children so that you can get young again. So maybe like genders and just steal people's souls.
00:01:30
Speaker
Yeah, there you go. Perfect. So struggle bus, but I'm here. Look, I'm doing my best. Exactly. That's all we can ask for. Yeah. And if I lose my voice by the end of this episode, it is what it is. I'll give you a hot tea. And just also to preface this, this episode releases the week of in bulk, which is February 2nd. So just FYI.
00:01:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's not even Christmas yet when we're recording this, but when this releases, this is your reminder that InBulk is coming this week. Yasss! Yay!
Unexpected Topics: Demons and Extra Nipples
00:02:08
Speaker
Okay, what are we talking about? We're talking about the witches familiars. This, I'm just gonna say, this episode, I thought it was gonna be like this cute cuddly little episode. It's kind of weird. This episode is filled with demons, extra nipples, and blood. Yeah, if I never see the word teat again, I think I'll be okay.
00:02:33
Speaker
Which is teat. I think that's like 47 times in my research. And I almost put it in mine. I actually think I put it in mine, but then I took it out because I saw you had it in yours and I was like, okay, that's like already one time too many. I'm not putting anything in here about a teat. Well, and I always think about Neil Gaiman's Good Omens book specifically, because there's like the whole witch hunter general is in it.
00:03:00
Speaker
And there's a, I can't even remember her name. It's been a while since I've read it, but like the main like female character and it is suspected of witchcraft and they're always talking about like to check her nipples, like how many nipples does she have? Because we just have like nine nipples and then it ends up she has like 40 billion nipples at the end because she's actually a witch.
00:03:20
Speaker
Yeah. So every time I hear witches teat, I just think of that book, which is a really silly take on like the history of witchcraft and like other shit. But his take on that is really funny. He just really like accentuates and makes fun of like all the dumb shit that they said. So
Historical Context of Familiars
00:03:38
Speaker
we're talking about familiars, which are not your cute cuddly little cats that you got at the rescue.
00:03:44
Speaker
No, it's not little pupper or fish or lizard or whatever. So
00:03:52
Speaker
To kind of get into it, we're going to talk about the history, which we have a little bit. As a reminder, we're sure most of our listeners already know, when we talk about the history of these topics, much of this information comes from a time where the term witch was used to scare people. And those that were accused were not actual witches. So information on familiars falls into this category, as well as in terms of people who would claim to see like Mary from next
00:04:20
Speaker
door conversing with her demon familiar to kill John's cow and then like she fed the familiar her own blood with like an additional nipple which the whole time I was reading a lot of the space I was just like rolling my eyes yeah
00:04:35
Speaker
but familiars are considered to be a witch's magical helper that assists the witch in a magical or supernatural way and the idea of them became popular in the 16th and 17th century Europe in small isolated communities due to people within the communities being on edge, being super suspicious, and like looking for the supernatural in their day-to-day lives because let's be honest it was probably pretty fucking boring so like
00:05:03
Speaker
How do you make it exciting? You make up all these random things that you're supposedly seeing. Yeah. In Britain, there were several accusations of like quote unquote witches and their familiars during the Pendle witch trials. And one source noted that historical documents of accusations from this trial gave the familiars cute names quoting one accusation as saying tib and ball
00:05:27
Speaker
would whisper the devil's wishes in the ears of witches and told them who to curse or who to kill next.
00:05:34
Speaker
So Tib and Ball were apparently famous witches or famous familiars during the Handel witch trials. Another wild historical example of what the witch trials brought about in terms of familiars is that during the Salem witch trials, one man was charged with encouraging a dog to attack by way of magical means. The dog, interestingly enough, was the one that was tried, convicted, and hanged.
00:06:00
Speaker
And you can find the story about this on About Religion, which we use quite a bit in our research. We love a Patty Weigington article. She gives us a lot of information that we tell you guys. That's really sad though. Apparently he was the man's familiar, but instead of trying the man, they tried the dog.
00:06:24
Speaker
But I guess maybe because they thought familiars were demons, which we're gonna get into.
Animal Form Demons and Witch Hunts
00:06:30
Speaker
But yeah, so this poor dog was hung, which is dumb. They've also been referred to as small demons, which I have said a couple of times already, which could be sent out to do a witch's bidding.
00:06:41
Speaker
Historically, familiars have been described as being demons in animal form. So some descriptions say that they're just like an ordinary animal or some type of unusual creature, and it's believed that familiars can appear in any form, but they often come as cats, dogs, toads, reptiles, or insects. They are also sometimes said to be like monsters that were some sort of like combination of various animals
00:07:13
Speaker
I can't even think of one, but when I was doing this research I was thinking of all the dumb medieval pictures that have these weird animal mashups.
00:07:26
Speaker
Um, I think it's also important here to note that often if you mention a witch is familiar, most people would automatically assume that it was a cat. Cats, especially black cats, have historically been tied to witches and witchcraft all throughout history. And this is believed to be because during the witch hunts and trials, there was this idea that the devil preferred cats, especially black cats.
00:07:50
Speaker
to serve as his or his demon's vessels. And we've talked about it, and I want to say it was in the history, but it might have been just one of our superstition episodes early on. But there was this whole purging of cats, especially black cats during this time, where they were just burning them because they believed they were demons. Yeah, I think it was when we were talking about the history of witchcraft. I think it was in that episode. Yeah.
00:08:18
Speaker
If not, it's in the Spooky 13 episodes because we did talk about black cats a lot in that too. Many people used to believe that wild animals that would frequent fields around a cunning person's home were the devil in disguise, and it was these animals that were referred to as familiars aiding the local witch.
00:08:39
Speaker
Because it couldn't just be like a fucking wild animal doing wild animal things, like looking for food or just like passing by. Like obviously for a wild animal here, it's a devil. So, witch. Traditional lore states that a familiar is often gifted to a witch by another witch.
00:09:00
Speaker
And if we want to go back to the times of witch hunts, the devil himself would even gift a witch with a familiar. These same texts also share that often the familiar is passed down from one generation to the next through ritual. And because they're demons, they don't die like a normal animal would. So they just believed that this demon stayed in its animal vessel and was passed from witch to witch throughout generations.
00:09:26
Speaker
Because that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. And that sometimes the familiar is noted just to appear when a witch is in a time of need.
00:09:34
Speaker
In terms of caring for a familiar, since it was believed that they were demons hiding in animal form, it was also believed that witches had to feed their familiar their own blood. Depending on the historical account you're reading from, a witch was believed to feed the familiar through her finger, which was considered like a nipple, I guess? I don't know.
00:09:56
Speaker
or through any nipple-like bump anywhere on their body to include moles and warts even. These were said to be a witch's teat and were considered a condemning mark of a witch during the infamous witch hunts and trials. And if you've listened to like our very first episode, we've talked more in depth about this before, but essentially if you had a mole, a wart, a freckle, a birthmark, a bruise, a scab, like literally anything,
00:10:22
Speaker
You were a witch because those were considered indicators of a witch or even as a mark of the devil because mankind is stupid. The lore surrounding feeding a familiar is believed to stem directly from the witch trials and was simply just an easy way to condemn a woman of witchcraft, making the Inquisitor's job super easy and making it seem like he was ridding the town of high levels of evil and saving them.
00:10:47
Speaker
To take the witch's teat to the next level, the witch hunters also accused women of feeding the devil from this extra nipple, which again was literally just some form of like mole or wart or freckle or whatever. Not actually a nipple. Which is so stupid. There are some historical texts that do note that a familiar eats offerings of bread, milk, beer, cakes, and more, but these accounts are few and far between in terms of history.
00:11:18
Speaker
unfortunately. Now while most of what history tells us about familiars is negative and through like a bigoted lens, the truth is that animal familiars have been around for centuries and have ties to many different cultures and even religions.
Modern Perspectives on Familiars
00:11:33
Speaker
These accounts have presented in creation myths, tribal traditions, and religions where they were seen as a type of guardian angel or even a guide. And for just like a few examples that I came across
00:11:47
Speaker
Native American tribes have familiar spirits and spirit guides that are known as totem animals. They often believe that a single person can have more than one totem animal, and each of the animals have different meanings and associations. They usually help by acting as a spirit guide for the person.
00:12:05
Speaker
In ancient Egypt, they worshipped a cat-headed goddess by the name of Vastet, who is associated with fertility, domestic happiness, pleasure, dance, and music. Because of this, domesticated cats held a reverence because they believed that each cat had an essence of the goddess in them. And, like, I didn't include a lot of this in my notes, but there was a lot of accounts of, like, they would see the cats not only as part of the goddess, but, like, if a cat came to them, it was like,
00:12:35
Speaker
this cat is my like spirit guide essentially. I forget the actual term that they used but it was like it wasn't spirit guide but it was like basically the same like preface. In shamanistic practices the animal familiar is not like an actual physical being or animal
00:12:52
Speaker
but rather it's like a thought form or a spiritual entity. And it will often travel astrally or serve as a magical guardian against those who might try to physically attack a shaman. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. So a lot more like examples that we could go into, but I like picked a few that were a little more
00:13:15
Speaker
I feel like the Native American ones are more common, but I wanted to pick some that were a little more obscure. Yes. I feel like, too, whenever I was researching more of the, what are they? What is the purpose? All that stuff I kept. It was tied a lot in with all of this history as well. There's so many things that could be seen as familiar just as a preface. I'm going to mention a couple of things.
00:13:37
Speaker
later on and whenever i'm talking but just just to kind of give you guys a little background definitely check out our resources because one of the resources that i use there is a shit ton of different animals and like what their meanings are and things like that so check that out so what are they now that we know the history of it let's talk about and differentiate what a familiar is
00:14:00
Speaker
especially as it corresponds to a pet. There's a big difference between a familiar and a pet. A store-bought pet or an animal that you've rescued is not a familiar. It doesn't matter how cute your black cat is. It doesn't make it a familiar. Oftentimes, familiars are also referred to as a familiar spirit. And this is
00:14:21
Speaker
I mean also you know really correlates with the history and what you talked about with what we've seen in shamanistic practices and in native american practices but a familiar spirit is often referred to as a spirit that needed a which.
00:14:36
Speaker
in their workings and they're often linked to that of a spirit guide. So there are some modern day witches who differentiate between the two stating that familiar spirits require energy in return for their services and so that's a way that you can differentiate a familiar spirit from a spirit guide because your spirit guides are not going to require your energy to help you throughout your life.
00:14:58
Speaker
But familiar is said to help gather data to bring back to a witch and can provide a witch with a form of psychic ability through the eyes and ears of that familiar. Additionally, they can carry out actual magical work for their witch and help with manifestations. And they're also known to protect and guard a witch should he or she ask for it. And also what kind of came up whenever I was researching like exactly what is a familiar and what it's not, a lot of stuff came up about ghosts and male spirits. And I think this is kind of linked also with
00:15:28
Speaker
historical things because I don't know if people are actually practicing like that today, but I thought it was important to note. So this ties back to the witch trials, of course, but there's a lot of documented history where ghosts or the dead aided the accused witches or they asked them to do their bidding. And again, like I don't know if anyone really practices like that today or if this was even ever a thing that was practiced, but it was something whenever I was looking up, like what exactly is, you know,
00:15:55
Speaker
these familiars and everything that's kept coming up and I'm just like, why? And why is it male spirits? I don't know. So a familiar is essentially a guide or a guardian, not a magical pet. If you own a pet that you love and you just happen to be a witch, they can be a magical pet for you, but they aren't specifically familiar. Familiars must have made a pact with a witch
00:16:19
Speaker
and is essentially a spirit who takes the form of an animal. And so I'm going to kind of go into this a bit with the purpose, but essentially, you know, it can be an animal that you see every day or an insect that you see every day. But the belief here is that there's a spirit that's essentially taking the form of that animal to help guide you in whatever way you need to be guided.
00:16:39
Speaker
The purpose of a witch is familiar is that they act as companions to witches and offer support, protection, and guidance. They can come and go through your life and they may not be what you're expecting and the companionship you have with them may not last long. In some cultures, they believe that a witch is familiar can be any animal that calls to your energy.
00:16:58
Speaker
And it can manifest in the same animal that you see cross your path many times. For instance, like a bird that always visits your bird feeder or a particular type of bee or insect that you just see everywhere that you normally wouldn't see. It's said that if you're seeing the same animal, it's good to take notice, reflect, and look up any meanings associated with that animal or insect.
00:17:18
Speaker
this can help provide guidance on how you should deal with a specific situation or it can help you navigate a particular part of your life and like i said like with the which is familiar they may only be like a fleeting part of your life it's not something that's going to stay with you forever so it really just depends on the situation and the type of familiar
00:17:40
Speaker
I've only picked a few of the modern day familiars that were listed on the research that I did. I want to preface, I'm going to reference this website many times and it's called the Wicca Academy. I know this isn't a Wiccan podcast, but there was a lot of really great information on this website and the author is Louise Clover.
00:18:04
Speaker
to let you guys know this information was pulled from her website and she has a ton of different animals listed, what they correspond to, what they represent, and how you can use them as familiars. If
Symbolic Meanings of Animal Familiars
00:18:17
Speaker
you want more information or a listing of other animals, go to that website and check it out.
00:18:23
Speaker
The first one that she talks about is a bat, and these are known as witches alter ego. Bats represent the lunar cycle and are connected to the unconscious, and they're meant as a sign to access deep rooted feelings. The next is obviously a cat, you know, cats and witches.
00:18:40
Speaker
We've mentioned this already on the podcast. It's synonymous with witches and when you think about a cat, you think about a witch and black cats have this terrible representation when it comes to witchcraft, which is sad because they are so cute. But cats just in general represent independence and self-nurturing. Cats are thought to be sensitive to psychic experiences and can assist in rituals and spellwork as well. Dogs are another animal that are listed and they're associated with loyalty and protectors of the earthly realm.
00:19:09
Speaker
And their energy can be harnessed for protection spells. And I know like, you know, if you watch YouTube or look at any sort of dog videos, people have seen this and they call it I can't remember what they call it. It's like a dog's intuition or something. But dogs have a heightened ability to sense others emotions and can alert
00:19:26
Speaker
Which to danger whether that be spiritual or physical and this is why you see especially dogs are used as like therapy animals because of that ability and then a dragonfly represents change and transformation and they're considered symbols of wisdom and maturity and often as they're associated with creativity so
00:19:48
Speaker
how to declare a familiar. I pulled this spell from, or this, I mean it's a spell but it's also a ritual from the Wicca Academy website, but I've included this here and I'm going to read it out, but I just want to say like if this is something that you're going to practice, like make sure that whatever animal you're using as you're familiar
00:20:09
Speaker
It's something that you can safely have in your home because this spell requires the animal to be with you while you're performing this. So you can't just like catch a bat out on the street and like bring it into your home and like, because you know, just be safe. Um, I don't know. Um, I don't know if like a picture of that specific animal would work. I feel like maybe it could. Like if you're taking a picture of that specific animal you see all the time, but
00:20:34
Speaker
just as a little fyi there and disclaimer but if you happen to have an animal that you believe you have a connection with you can declare them as you're familiar and this is a little spell that you can use to do that so the ingredients that you'll need are three brown or purple candles rose oil a crystal bowl
00:20:51
Speaker
and the animal in the same room. But like I said, I feel like if, at least for myself, if I were to specifically see this specific insect all the time, or this animal all the time, I'm probably not going to take that into my home.
00:21:06
Speaker
But you could probably take a picture of it. I probably won't. Yeah. You could tell the animal. I don't know. It just depends. But just do with that information what you feel. Come on, little coyote. Yeah. It's fine. It's fine. Just come on in. I've got snacks for you and then your room's destroyed. I know. I can hear a little possum. Yeah.
00:21:29
Speaker
So what you're going to do is essentially by your altar, you're going to, and preferably during a full moon, you're going to melt the three candles into your crystal bowl. When the wax has cooled a little but it's still malleable, shape it into an effigy of your animal, then put it on your altar. Pluck three hairs from yourself. If your animal wears a collar tied around their collar or keep it close to their cage or terrarium or whatever you have your animal in,
00:21:56
Speaker
gather something belonging to your animal scales that were shed a feather dropped or hairs if you must but the author says please ask permission from the animal before taking something from the animal.
00:22:08
Speaker
anoint the rose oil in a pentagram symbol on your wax figure. Then press the gathered material from your animal into that pentagram. While in steps three to five, so essentially like gathering something belonging to the animal, plucking the three hairs from yourself, anointing the rose oil and the pentagram and all that stuff, fill your mind with the intentions of love and connection and declare your particular pet as a familiar. Then keep the effigy on your altar.
00:22:36
Speaker
I thought that was a really interesting little spell that you can do to declare a familiar. There's a bunch
How to Declare an Animal as a Familiar
00:22:43
Speaker
of different little spells that she has on this website as well that can help you with this process of working with a familiar. I just didn't want to include everything and obviously I don't want to read everything she has on her website to you guys. I thought this spell was really interesting so I wanted to include that.
00:23:05
Speaker
Familiars. Familiars. I think it's pretty interesting. It's kind of a weird topic. Yeah. Not as cute and cuddly as I thought it was going to be. Right. And definitely. I thought we were picking the ones. I thought we were picking because as I said at the beginning, like we recorded this episode and the palmistry episode within like a couple of minutes of each other. Yeah. One than the other. I literally when we talked about doing two episodes, I was like these two should be like light, easy topics. Yeah.
00:23:34
Speaker
fun. And while they were fun, they were not light. And they were this one, especially it was a little bit on the odd side. Yeah, it really was like, and it really just showed us to like, as much as we practice, but when it comes to paganism, when it comes to witchcraft, when it comes to the occult, there's so many different paths you can take. And there's so many different things that you can learn about. And
00:23:58
Speaker
and reference in your work. And there's a lot of things that we still don't know, even practicing, but this was something really interesting. And I'm
Distinguishing Pets from Familiars
00:24:06
Speaker
really glad that we researched this. And we discussed this on the podcast, because I do think that in just modern day witchcraft and paganism, there is this huge misconception that your magical pet or just a pet that you own and you happen to be a witch is you're familiar. And that's not actually what that's supposed to be now.
00:24:25
Speaker
and how it's supposed to work. I like this because it also, I think, helps people to understand that not every aspect of your life has to be magical. For some people, they might think like, oh, I'm doing something wrong if I have a pet and I don't feel this magical connection to them. I'm obviously not enough of a witch or I'm not doing this correctly. There's no
00:24:52
Speaker
That doesn't mean just because you have a pet that you own and you don't have a familiar doesn't mean that you are any less of a witch than anyone else. So I'm really glad that we did research this.
00:25:03
Speaker
Yeah, well in terms of like the weird, for me the weird was like the history of it and like how like historically familiars were made out. Yes, like for me, I like I've never researched this topic. I've you know, I know about like the witches familiar during the witch trials because we've talked about that extensively throughout multiple episodes on
00:25:25
Speaker
the podcast, but like, I guess I just, because of that misconception, I was like, Oh, you're familiar is just like this cat that you found on the corner in the trash can. But like, no, it's not. There's like this whole thing to it. And it doesn't like it's not your cat that you adopted or found in the trash or like, whatever. Because you know, there's always that joke where people are like, Oh, this is my purebred
00:25:53
Speaker
whatever whatever dog and then like their cats they're like, yeah, I found him in the trash can his name is noodle. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, you know, it was interesting to do this research and to see like, how differently this topic I like how I think about this topic differently now after having done it versus what I thought it was prior to doing it. Yeah, absolutely. I agree. Yeah. So but that's it.
00:26:21
Speaker
Yeah, that's it. That's so much is familiar is I hope you guys have a blessed in bulk. And if you celebrate you do anything and you have an altar or anything, please tag us and whatever celebrations you do, we want to see it. Yeah. And if you have a familiar
00:26:36
Speaker
And you're like open to sharing that feel free to like reach out. Absolutely. We want to hear like send us an email send us a DM like whatever we are here we and and again like I know we mentioned this on the palmistry episode but when it comes to familiars because this is also a topic that we're not super like
00:26:53
Speaker
advanced it or anything. If we said something wrong or if you have added insight on familiars or working with a familiar or if you have a ritual or a spell that you think is better than the one that we referenced on the podcast, let us know because whatever you have that works for you might work for somebody else as well. And it's an amazing way to share within our community.
00:27:17
Speaker
And it's always nice for us too, because topics like this that we're not well versed in, being able to have someone tell us firsthand experience versus us going to somewhere on the internet and reading about it is nice too. Yes. But yeah, but that's it. Yeah. Peace out, witches.
00:27:45
Speaker
That's it for this episode of Get In Loser, We're Doing Witchcraft. You can find our source material for this episode linked in the show notes. If you love this episode, we would be forever thankful if you leave us a five-star review on wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you really love the show and want more Get In Loser content, check out our Supercast link provided in the show notes or search the Supercast website for Get In Loser, We're Doing Witchcraft.
00:28:07
Speaker
There you can purchase a membership to our podcast and the game exclusives, like getting exclusives early, shoutouts on the show, access to our Ask Me Anything forum, our monthly newsletter, a promo code for merchandise, and more. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, the hidden witches, or email us at weirdoowitchcraftinggmo.com. Check us out next week for a part one deep dive on birth checks and tell