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27. What it is to know darkness.
20 Plays2 months ago
Darkness is strange and terrible and so beautiful, full of the mysteries of the human experience. We’re here to explore it together.
“The darkness fears what darkness knows,
But if you’ve never known the darkness,
Then you’re the one who fears the most.”
- TORRES, New Skin
CW/TW for this episode: discussions of dark/baneful magic, mentions of eating disorders, suicide/suicidal ideation, SA, murder/a murder trial, homophobia, blood, gore, and bodily fluids/functions, car accidents
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Hosts: Christina Bell & Molly Wilde
Music: The Confrontation, by Jonathan Boyle, licensed from Premium Beats by Shutterstock
Editing: Molly Wilde
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Transcript
Discussion on 'The Staircase' series and Michael Peterson case
00:00:24
Speaker
Did you ever watch a crime documentary series on Netflix called The Staircase? Ah, I believe so, yes. Do you remember anything about it? Well, it was about, God, I want to say it was another Peterson. like Michael Peterson. Okay. And he like shoved his wife down the stairs or they were trying to prove that he did all that crap. Uh-huh. And that she died. Yeah.
00:00:54
Speaker
I mean, I do remember the story, but I don't remember like all the details. Well, yeah, of course. I found myself fascinated by that case when I first watched that series, which I think I watched it when it came out in 2018. Yeah.
Reassessing Michael Peterson's innocence
00:01:12
Speaker
I've been rewatching it yesterday and today, and it's interesting because like when I first watched it, I felt relatively convinced that he was innocent.
00:01:25
Speaker
And as i've as I'm rewatching it, I feel even more convinced that he's in his innocent. Really? And yet he has served time. I don't even know. I can't remember because I haven't gotten to the end of the series. I can't remember if he ever has come out of prison. I don't know.
The owl attack theory
00:01:45
Speaker
The interesting thing is when I looked up the trial, like I can't remember what article it was, but I read something that had evidence that was never even mentioned or even alluded to in this docu-series, that there were feathers found in her hair. huh Like, like what what they believe, or what I heard, what I was reading was that she might have been attacked by an owl. Inside of the house? No, outside of the house, and she ran inside.
00:02:24
Speaker
Okay. And that is why there were so many lacerations on her head. And that is why there was so much blood everywhere. Oh my god. That it wasn't that she, you know, she slammed her head against multiple corners. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. And that would explain why there were lacerations, but no, like brain trauma.
00:02:54
Speaker
Uh-huh. And it's crazy to me because it's like, apparently evidence was found of with feathers in her hair as though an owl had swooped down and attacked her. Crazy. Which apparently they were known to do in that area. Wow. When they felt like they their territory was being encroached on. I did not know that owls attacked humans. I've never heard of that before. but Any bird can attack a human.
00:03:24
Speaker
right so that's interesting um i don't know if i ever heard about the owl theory that doesn't ring a bell to me um well you wouldn't have because it wasn't included in the documentary or in the trial okay was there did they talk about feathers in the hair no no zero mention of feathers but it was mentioned in whatever i had read oh And I'm like, but here's, here's the other thing.
Impact of homophobia in Michael Peterson's trial
00:03:52
Speaker
Even if there was no owl, even if it all played out exactly as depicted, I still believe that he is innocent because I can clearly see the ways in which he was being targeted by the DA of Durham, North Carolina, um as well as people, literally the DA and
00:04:15
Speaker
effectively the population of the, you know, the area fully, fully leaning into homophobia as a, because he's, uh, Michael Peterson is bisexual. Okay. And had extramarital quote unquote affairs with men. Okay. That can ah kind that his wife, yeah, but his wife fully was aware of them. Okay. And they tried very hard to, and effectively succeeded,
00:04:45
Speaker
in twisting the narrative so that the jury would believe that he was a gay cheater who like broke his wife's heart and then he killed her. To try and get out of the marriage or whatever. Or because she started a fight about it or something. When like that was not remotely how their marriage was conducted. They were fully exploiting the fact that they knew they could lean into ah homophobic argument and resonate with jurors in that way. Not to mention the fact. Yeah. And not to mention the fact that officially they continued to refer to him as bisexual, but they like very flippantly would be like, Oh, the gay thing, the gay thing. Right. It's like, motherfuckers, he's not gay.
00:05:41
Speaker
Yeah. Anyway, it makes me so angry. So angry. But wasn't there like a thing that happened to his previous wife that she also died in a similar way? No, not his previous wife, a friend of theirs hu who died 18 years before, who actually did have a brain hemorrhage and died that way.
00:06:05
Speaker
Oh, wow. But it just, it was coincidental that she fell down the stairs to having the brain hemorrhage. But like, that is the exact thing is like, that's, that's part of why I enjoy the way that they lay out all the evidence in this docu-series is because they do it in such a way that shows exactly how the DA was using, like digging up as much evidence as they could to try to point to him being a killer.
00:06:35
Speaker
when there was no evidence he was in the house at the time of that other woman's death, and no evidence that it was a homicide, but that multiple witnesses had heard her complain about headaches in the weeks leading up to her death. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Not to mention, you can read the character of a person pretty easily. Yeah. ah In particular, you can see in the context of him, you know, this was, this occurred in I think 2001. So like throughout the nineties, he was a writer and he wrote a column in Durham and he criticized the DA's office a lot for their incompetence. and Before that happened. Yes. So they effectively saw this as a perfect opportunity to take him out. That's crazy. Yeah.
Channing Tatum and 'Blink Twice'
00:07:35
Speaker
what i see in him is a forward-thinking open-minded liberal man non-straight man in the south in the 90s who was like eons ahead of everybody in his community in terms of intelligence and awareness he was way smarter than all of them and they fucking hated him for it so interesting yep
00:08:06
Speaker
But anyway, that's what I was watching before we got on to record. so I watched a very interesting movie today. What did you watch? I can't remember what streaming service for sure, but it might have been Prime. It was called Blink Twice. Who's the guy who plays Magic Mike?
00:08:27
Speaker
uh another bisexual chanting tatum chanting tatum yeah he's the head the lead actor the lead character essentially in this movie i love it i love it did you know he's bi no i don't think i did oh my god yes he's bi yeah it was it was it's a thriller like it's kind of gore i mean not gory gory but like A little tiny tiny bit and like uh-huh. It's it's a thriller It's pretty good. It's is there. Oh, can you like give a synopsis without giving it away? ah I could try I have to like you you super don't have to you can say no, but let me tell you it's okay Who directed it? I don't know if it would mean anything to you at all But Zoe Kravitz, are you familiar?
00:09:19
Speaker
related to Lenny, but I can't remember how. Yeah, I believe that's his daughter. Okay. um So- Is this a new movie? It came out last year. Okay. And I might've, like, if it's Prime that it was streaming on, it was, like, made for Prime or something like that. Like, you know what I mean? Okay. Yeah. um I think it was crying, but I can't remember for sure. I'm sorry, Kravitz. I don't think I knew that she directed movies. No, I didn't either. um But I saw her name and I was like, Oh my God, it's Lenny's daughter. Wow. Anyway, I love Lenny Kravitz.
Trigger warnings in movies discussion
00:09:52
Speaker
That's, that's agreed. He's
00:09:58
Speaker
Oh, anyway. It's true. It's true. And I love a lot of his music. Um, so the movie, it's very, very interesting. And it actually, at the very beginning of it has a trigger warning, which I don't think I've ever seen at the beginning of a movie. Have you? What was the trigger warning? Abuse of power. Like in a personal relationship or like? Just abuse of power was a general, was a general. Um,
00:10:27
Speaker
forcible relations. Got you. ah S.A. Yeah. And honestly, I don't remember, but it was like, there's these things in this movie. So it's like a yeah warning. Yeah, I've seen movies and like documentaries, etc. that have shown a warning mostly due to or mostly pertaining to like mental health problems and the suicide mention, but like in the same vein, listing like the suicide prevention hotline yeah and being like, if you feel this way, like please get help. I've seen that, but I feel like it was at the end of a movie, but I could be wrong about that. I've seen i've seen them at the beginnings and the endings of movies um and mostly like docu-mentories,
00:11:25
Speaker
docu-series, whatever, like particularly when it's like about a person who hasn't like, you know, ended their own life. Or I do remember in The Crown in season four, when they had the early, when they were depicting the early days of Princess Diana, they had a lot, or like a quite a few episodes had mornings at the beginning of depictions of eating disorders. And you know and I think another hotline or at least an imploring to seek help if you are suffering with those kinds of issues. um So i have I have a story. You have a story.
Car accident experience with Julie
00:12:05
Speaker
It's a story that you know. gonna yeah Are you going to talk about ah the event from this weekend?
00:12:12
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. So yeah, me and my friend, Julie, who we've talked about plenty of times prior to tonight, um we were in her van driving. I was driving the van because she doesn't drive. and On Saturday night. Yeah. And it's her van. And yeah it is equipped for wheelchair use, like it has a ramp on it and stuff. Yeah.
00:12:37
Speaker
and I don't know if anyone else that listens is familiar with any kind of handicapped equipment that people use for wheelchairs, but it has like tracks in the floor and Sherlock's. which are exactly what we use in the bus, in the school bus. So they're retractable with big hooks on them and you pull them out and you hook on onto the chair and you do four points. And then like these were the ones that she has lot like self-tighten. Okay. So, but the ones we have in the bus, that you have to crank a knob to tighten them down.
00:13:09
Speaker
Uh, we were sitting at a red light with two cars in front of us and somebody came flying up behind us, probably going full speed. I don't think he even hit his brakes and whacked us real good from the hack behind and pushed us into the car in front of me. And then that car hit the car in front of them. So like a backward snap and then two frontward, like, yeah. So it was like triple whiplash. Uh, triple lash.
00:13:38
Speaker
Yeah, triple lash. um So her wheelchair got damaged. Her van is pretty much totaled. It is totaled. And um she broke her hip, so she's in the hospital.
00:13:52
Speaker
here So, but she's all right. Otherwise, okay, both of you. Otherwise, we're both fine. Yeah. um i My neck was real, real sore for the first two or three days, and then I've been on muscle relaxers, and they've made quite a bit of a difference. like I can tell like these the two muscles that run right here on your neck,
00:14:10
Speaker
those ones got really hyperextended because my head went back like first. And like, I can still feel this one feels like a knot in it. And when I press on it, it's tender still. But like, what was bothering me the most was like, when I'm laying in bed, it was hard to lift my head off the pillow. It hurt. So I would like put my hand underneath my head and lift my head up, like to like flip over or do whatever I was going to do on the pillow. yeah um And like, that part is almost gone.
00:14:41
Speaker
But like I said, when I push on the front there, I can feel they're still tender a bit. Yeah. But I do, I have, and I've been off work this whole week and this is Thursday and I'll be off tomorrow. But I plan on going back Monday because I think I'm fine enough to drive. Yeah. And I won't take any muscle relaxers, of course. so Yeah, yeah, of course. Anyway, but that's a segue into our topic tonight, in my opinion.
Justice sigils and types of magic
00:15:11
Speaker
Would you like to introduce the topic? Uh, I guess I would, i since you built the segway I don't know how to word it specifically the way you might word it, but like, baneful slash gray slash dark magic. I don't really know. yeah Would you call it those three things? Yeah, pretty much. like me I feel like they are, they are pretty much those three things are like one and the same in terms of definition, in my opinion, at least.
00:15:38
Speaker
ah Anybody and everybody is welcome to interpret them how they want to, but they are basically the same thing in my view. Yeah. yeah So one of a one of our friends from the Marko group did a ah like a grid, but but there was a ah candle burning with a sigil underneath it, and it had my name and Julie's name on it.
00:16:04
Speaker
And the the sigil was like a healing sigil or something like that. So she did that. And um after the candle was burned out, she was like, next, we're going to work on a justice sigil or something like that. Some kind of thing like that. And I was like, all right. All right. That's cool. Anyway, that's a that was it. Cool. Yeah.
00:16:30
Speaker
So, so is that what made you think of um just her, her justice comment? I mean, yeah. Like the justice sigil or, or grid or whatever she was going to be yeah setting up. It was like, Hmm, okay. I'm down yeah because the the funny thing is, sorry, go ahead. It's okay. What I failed to mention when I was explaining the accident, the guy who hit us literally backed up, did a U-turn and took off and I could not get his plate because he was out of there so fast.
00:16:59
Speaker
I couldn't turn around fast enough. He was gone. Which is insane to me. It is insane. Yes, it is. So that that guy deserves some real justice. like not even Not even just insane that somebody would do that, but that he could. could yeah I don't know how this car is drivable. He hit us really hard. he i I don't know.
00:17:23
Speaker
I can't imagine he could have gotten very far. you know That's a good question. yeah i mean With the kind of death like damage that he has to have sustained. Yeah. Because literally we couldn't start Julie's van again after the accident. And I didn't turn it off. I think it just stopped running and then like yeah it wouldn't turn over or whatever after that. so I don't know how this guy's car could survive this right type of crash because he was coming at me full force. And then I just got pushed into the next guy not going that fast because I couldn't have picked up the same amount of speed he had that short right that short of a distance. yeah that's I don't know. It's crazy. But the front end took almost as much damage as the back end on the van. Just nuts.
00:18:13
Speaker
absolutely bananas. You know, and I don't know if this is like your interpretation or hers, but I would not even categorize a justice sigil or any sort of justice working as anything dark or gray.
00:18:30
Speaker
No, and I don't think I would either, but I just kind of felt like this story segued into the topic pretty well. No, yeah i'm not disagreeing I'm not disagreeing with you. right I'm not disagreeing with you at all, but it's like I think that some people would consider justice to be a gray working. Yeah, potentially, potentially, but like justice is deserved.
00:18:54
Speaker
Right? Oh, for sure. It's like this person deserves to be punished, yeah jailed, whatever, find a lot of money, whatever, sued, whatever. Yeah, but let me get some money, man. Give me some money because I just lost a whole week's worth of wages because I'm out of sick days. Yeah. And it's like regardless of whether anybody wants to argue that that's what insurance is for, insurance will literally like fight tooth and nail to not pay. Exactly.
00:19:24
Speaker
like this is, it's fair. It's fair to want that. Yeah, absolutely. And I, I, first of all, as I thought about talking about this, this topic, I had to like say to myself, and I didn't even get the chance to like,
Ethics of using dark or gray magic
00:19:43
Speaker
bring this up to you. But Now I am. i don't even want I feel like there's too much discourse out there already on the ethics of gray magic and dark magic, and like that's not even when i when I thought of this topic.
00:19:59
Speaker
That's not even an aspect that I feel like is worth going into because of how much is already being talked about out there. And and I feel like all that people want to do is talk about the ethics of dark magic rather than like the logistics of dark magic because they don't even want to get over the hump of ethics to even discuss doing it, if that makes sense. um And that's, again, totally their prerogative.
00:20:27
Speaker
anybody any person Any given person's prerogative to not want to go over that hump where I feel like, but I don't know, it's just that ah every time I've heard dark magic or banful magic being talked about, it is only ever in the context of, is it ethical? Not, how do you do it?
00:20:45
Speaker
yeah yeah you know because yeah like I feel like it's still a controversial opinion to think that it's okay to dabble in that, let alone embrace it. you know But that's an opinion that I hold, is it's it's completely okay and not only okay, but like normal, I think. yeah and I want to also put out for the record that we are not talking about us doing anything specific no right now. I've never done it, but yeah but I mean, it would always have to depend on the situation and and the person as to whether or not I would ever engage in something like that. I don't know. yeah yeah At this point in my life, I feel like I don't know if I would feel good enough. like That's not even the right phrase. like Feel comfortable enough doing it.
00:21:38
Speaker
Um, to do it, I mean, but like, you strike me never um than the closed off. Yeah. Right. So I say it's never out of the question because like, of course it would depend on the situation and the person, right? yeah shit j run so fast Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's like, in my opinion, it's not only like circumstances needing to change, but how you feel about them sometimes is the thing that changes really fast.
00:22:06
Speaker
to and And you can reach a point of just like, no, okay, I need to fucking do something about this. Right. And the thing is, here's here's the thing that I think too, because you're not actually physically doing something to so to hurt somebody.
Magic as an extension of karma?
00:22:20
Speaker
Right. so whatever magical workings you want to do behind closed doors, it's completely private anyway. And like, I mean, unless you're involving a coven or a group of people to help strengthen it. Yeah. But even then, that's those are private. Yeah. They're still private, but it's like you're not physically doing something to harm somebody. Yeah. And so like the magic aspect of it, you could even look at it as like, well,
00:22:47
Speaker
who Most people don't believe magic is real and or that witches have power to do anything magical at all. Yeah. So like, how would painful or dark or whatever magic be any better or different or stronger or more effective or whatever? So like, what are you worried about friend? Leave me alone.
00:23:09
Speaker
yeah super i about it like super It's like it's so that fits so perfectly into the same argument that people use about like, you know, like not believing the terror is real, but then ooh, do me a reading. You know, it's just like, you don't fucking believe in it. So no.
00:23:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Like, just fuck off, right? and You don't believe it that my magic is real. Why are you worried that I'm hexing somebody or whatever? Yeah, go go in your own merry way, please. I can certainly not be admissible in court, so. Exactly, exactly. God. Oh my God.
00:23:48
Speaker
ah this is This is me neither condoning or not condoning. and dark magic honestly my my hands are washed of this I know judgment and I'm not condemning or or encouraging anything I will so I will go so far as to say I condone if a person individually feels personally confident enough and feels like it's like you know they use their own intuition in their own
00:24:21
Speaker
Judgment to discern that that is something they need to do. I condone them doing it Absolutely do it if that's what you need to do do it. Yeah, and I would want Anybody to feel the same way about my workings. Mm-hmm Yeah. And when we wasn't there a question about, about freezing somebody in ice?
Ingredients in dark or gray magic
00:24:45
Speaker
Like, and technically the, the... Whether that's dark or not. The actual spell is
00:24:51
Speaker
Like writing their name on paper and freezing it in the freezer in a chunk of ice or whatever. Like some people would think that that is gray or being full, but it really isn't. It's a protection spell in my opinion, because you're like yeah keeping that person from doing any more harm. Like it's, you're freezing them so like they cannot continue to do whatever they're doing. Yeah.
00:25:17
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like that's where, you know, that's where discussions of ethics can go so many different directions or, or exist on such like a wide spectrum. Because there are people out there who believe that a Fraser spell is like, technically, taking away somebody's agency. And it's like, sure, okay, you can, you can believe that, or you can interpret it that way.
00:25:45
Speaker
based on your own views and your own beliefs. But I mean, it kind of goes, I feel like it's harkening a little back, a little bit back into the episode we did about karma, where like, you can believe a certain way and operate that way. But that does not mean that everybody else has to operate on that same MO, really. Yeah.
00:26:15
Speaker
as well as the something that you know you mentioned when we did the the Karma episode, talking about how sometimes us choosing to take certain action that might be viewed as gray or dark is really us being the hand of Karma.
00:26:36
Speaker
yeah Like where it's like you, you were the one that made that point. Yeah. Um, I already, I do remember that. like I don't know if you, I don't remember if you were quoting something or if you had just, you know, a thought of it, but regardless, I, I really hold to that because the people who usually choose not to dip a toe into anything gray or dark are the people who say karma will take care of it. But it's like.
00:27:03
Speaker
What if you're the one that has to be the karma? What if karma has chosen you? I do remember that now. And I just, yeah I'm pretty sure i I just thought of that on the spot. But but it's true. It makes sense. Maybe yeah karma chose you to be the one to ah to ex turn turn the tables, if you will. yeah Yeah. Or to at least set into motion events that lead to the karma that has to be paid out. Yeah.
00:27:33
Speaker
I've thought about that a lot since you said that. you know And and i I fully get behind it. so Cool. yeah yeah Glad I can be a good influence on you.
00:27:46
Speaker
Yeah. So I was going to ask them, suspending the ethics discussion and suspending the whether or not you would ever do something in the dark magic arena,
00:28:03
Speaker
Have you ever thought of ingredients or tools or techniques or anything in that side of things that you could use to carry out a spell of that variety? I haven't given that a whole lot of thought.
00:28:23
Speaker
Because that's more what I want to talk about. Right. I would assume that a witch's athemae would probably come in handy for spells like that. Yeah. Am I wrong? but Yeah, or. Fire spells. Fire for sure. An athemae, I've always heard that an athemae is not to be used in anything tangible or like for anything pra like technical. Right.
00:28:50
Speaker
and that there's a different type of witch's knife that is supposed to be used to actually cut things. um and that's like a but just i can't I can't even remember what it's called, but I've heard like an athame being a double-edged blade and then the other tool needing to be a single-edged blade. Yeah, I think I've heard of that too. Yeah. But I'm i'm thinking, what is the one where they, where you it's like, it's not cord cutting, is it? Where you're like, going like this in front of yourself, where you're like, putting off your psychic connections and and... I mean, you could use an FMA for that. Yeah, yeah. But you could also use a wand, you could use a crystal, you could just use your hand. Yeah, exactly what I'm doing.
00:29:37
Speaker
yeah right right right yeah um actual cord cuttings i have only ever seen done using fire to actually like burn the cord but i like that better i like uh the idea better of using fire for cord cutting than actually like taking a knife or any sort of blade to cut a cord ritualistically, yeah it feels more final because there's nothing left then. And that's really the point when you're trying to achieve a cord cutting. That's the point is to have nothing left between the two of you. I am not going to get into the context around the working that I did last year, but if we're going to talk about tools and ingredients
00:30:29
Speaker
Do you remember any of what I used? um I think there was some hot sauce involved. um Yeah. I don't know if there was any like black pepper or cayenne pepper involved. Not black pepper or cayenne pepper, but there was a pepper. There was a habanero pepper. Oh, okay. Yeah.
00:30:51
Speaker
I don't remember much else. I used a couple different kinds of hot sauce. I used vinegar. um I thought that maybe I added some kind of oil, but I can't remember what kind of oil it would have been. ah Like, but there was, you know, it was a jar full of liquid, but there was a habanero pepper, there were nails involved. And I do have a black black arts oil, which I used interesting that day as well.
00:31:19
Speaker
Yeah, but as I thought about like I wanted very specifically I wanted hot ingredients because the like the purpose or the intention behind it was turning up the heat. That's what I literally what I called it as well turning up the heat. Hence the habanero pepper. Hence the hot sauce. Yeah, just like really cranking the temperature.
00:31:46
Speaker
So I kind of feel like another thing that you could call that type of spell that you said, like ah turning the heat up. I like the phrase also holding someone's feet to the fire. Like there's, there's many ways of using that phrase, but you know, it's kind of like sure making them feel, making them feel the pain a little bit. Yeah. you know Yeah. Yeah. Increasing discomfort in order to enact somebody changing their own circumstances.
00:32:16
Speaker
changing their behavior or whatever. Changing their behavior. Yeah, exactly. Um, you know, just sort of like sending a message and also like, if it puts them off of dealing with you, then fine. That's what it needed to do. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I've never been afraid or I'm not going to say that for as long as I've been comfortable with anything besides light magic, I have never been afraid of that being a potential end result.
00:32:46
Speaker
So, yeah. another thought Another thought I was having where somebody might have the argument about ah taking somebody else's free agency or whatever away. In a way, no, because really all you're doing is trying to enact the universe to teach them a lesson, you know?
00:33:10
Speaker
Does that really make sense? You're trying to create something that their universe can then say, oh, look, right you know here's something that makes the person stop in their tracks or yeah have ah have yeah an aha moment. or you know yeah It's like it's like a um a magical form of like pattern interruption. Yeah. yeahp That makes sense to me. Yeah. So and when we took our little recess,
00:33:39
Speaker
and I was thinking about stuff to
Discussing stigmatized topics to reduce fear
00:33:42
Speaker
use. so yeah yeah There's a whole genre we haven't even touched on yet. Well, a whole not a whole genre, a whole category of painful ingredients we have not even touched on yet. okay And i'm gonna I'm gonna put a content warning up here at the top for the listener. Nasty.
00:34:01
Speaker
ah
00:34:06
Speaker
But this is... Listen, herere you you're the one with the toilet humor. Aw, man. I'm gonna get down to business about the toilet stuff. You're gonna get in the weeds about it. I'm gonna get in the toilet business, not the toilet humor. Oh my goodness. I'm in the business of toilets. No. oh Oh my god. Blood. Yeah. Shit piss. Vomit. Puss.
00:34:38
Speaker
Ew! Ew! Ew! But it's effective! Ew! But it's effective! But like, you don't just naturally come by pus. There is no better use for that shit. Oh my god, dude.
00:34:53
Speaker
I never would have thought of that, dude, never. I was, I feel like I, sorry, go ahead. I just, I feel like I could easily wipe my butt and fold that tissue over and keep it for another day. Or just immediately fold it around somebody's name. Oh yeah. Yeah. Just like have somebody's name, like right now. Yeah. And, you know, use that. And yeah, like I know of people. And then flush it.
00:35:22
Speaker
or burn it. Put it in a jar. Put it in a jar and then what? Well, then, you know, add other things that are going to add to it, like whatever you need to do, but like, you could bury it. Yeah. You know, it just depends. I got a fire pit out back that might work even when it's cold. True. But regardless, like, ah there are people who like will shit into a jar onto, you know, a representation of someone like those kinds of things. There's literally the phrase piss and vinegar. I've used vinegar, you know, like, it's like, it's all in that in that vein. But it's like, you know, it depends on the particulars of a situation. Or like,
00:36:10
Speaker
or yeah, just whatever it is that you feel is intuitively calling to you. There's also like actual chemicals, although at this point, definitely do your research on what's gonna react with what, yeah you know? Like bleach. Don't use bleach unless you know exactly what it would react with. right you know ah I suppose there's always like, bleach is not the exact same thing as like ah like rubbing alcohol, you know, or like an acetone or something. No, they're totally different.
00:36:40
Speaker
right yeah like those kinds of things where it's like as long as you know you can safely combine it with other things or if you're not using any other you know liquids and it's just like paper or something like those kinds of things those are all like fair game as well as candles as well as cords as well as like you know ice fire absolutely as well as like physically destroying a thing yeah like physically ripping stuff up or like stomping on it or like grinding it into the dirt, you know? Ooh. Yeah. Coffee grinder. Ooh. Or a blender. yeah i was Yeah. Because I don't have a coffee grinder, but I do have a blender. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like any... Yeah. Listen to us, witches getting baneful.
00:37:35
Speaker
Because it's like, I don't know, there for the people who feel confident enough to implement these workings, there's not enough discussion around what you want to actually do, or what you could actually do. Yeah. and So that's that's why I wanted to get into it. Like idea sharing, if you will. Idea sharing, absolutely. That's exactly it. But as well as just sort of trying, and this I feel actually is going to segue us into not a new topic, but a bigger theme for us, huh which is that I feel it's important to work against the stigmas that have been built up against certain subject matter, including darkness and dark magic. Yeah. Do you remember the conversation we had with
00:38:33
Speaker
your high school
Balancing darkness and light within oneself
00:38:35
Speaker
friend. Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember what we had talked about with her, with regards to what we feel we're meant to be doing by having this podcast? Being real, being honest. Yeah. And like, even if it's a little uncomfortable, like getting into it anyway. Yeah.
00:38:56
Speaker
I mean, am I remembering correctly or please add to that? You are. You are. And it's like that also very much could have been exactly the impression that you walked away from the conversation with. The impression that I walked away from the conversation with was all of what you said, but leaning deeper into like, what is our reality?
00:39:19
Speaker
In addition to all the beautiful things that we've described, we have both led extraordinarily dark and challenging lives. Yeah, I mean, not led them, but like lived them.
00:39:31
Speaker
Well, yeah, that's what I mean. i I mean, we've both been through a lot of BS and we've experienced a lot of darkness and it contributed to our personalities, um our ways of living, our like ways of thinking, but it's not like it's hurt us in a way where we can't also be good and light and happy and love right all the exactly positive things.
00:39:59
Speaker
We can be both when, depending on the situation and what the, you know, all that stuff. Yeah. like And that's what I feel like is the point here is that society, especially Western society, have built such a fear and a stigma against anything and everything remotely negative or even even neutral, you know?
00:40:31
Speaker
and And we are living proof that, and and so many people in the world, but like, you know, if we want to make this active choice here to speak out about it. We are living proof that you can live through darkness and still bring light. Yeah. While acknowledging the reality of the darkness that has been in your life and is a part of you. Right.
00:40:59
Speaker
and that it is just as beautiful as any other part. And in particular, too, I feel like we maybe due to our life circumstances made it maybe due to our inherent personalities, or maybe due to like, predestined, like, fate, ah we both have a much higher tolerance and ability to handle these kinds of things.
00:41:26
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Like talking about them, thinking through them, dealing with them. And the only way that a stigma gets worked against and reduced is by talking about it and facing it. Open discussion. Yeah. Absolutely. And so that's why I wanted to have such a frank discussion about dark magic, and not the ethics of it, but like the logistics of it.
00:41:55
Speaker
You know, not because like, oh, we're about to just like launch into a career of like only dark magic now. No, but because- Can you actually have a career of dark magic? I would love to have a career in dark magic. My God. Well, look at look at Slytherin House. I mean, they're working towards a career in dark magic in my opinion. Oh, God.
00:42:25
Speaker
what a beautiful thing
00:42:29
Speaker
God, it just to have a career as a witch would be incredible. Hell yeah, dude. You're the village witch. That's true, I am. Now I can be the villain witch. The villain witch? Whoa, no, that's me. You're the village witch. Oh my God. You already got your title. And now I feel like we could very easily tie it back into Wicked, but you know.
Challenging binary thinking in magic and life
00:42:55
Speaker
Oh my God. I love Wicked.
00:42:59
Speaker
i love that freaking movie oh my god so good i can't wait for part two when's it coming out god i've heard november i i've heard november so if you can find a very specific date please tell me but anyway i'm trying to make a point here I don't know, we gotta do the ADHD thing once in a while. yeah You mean every single time?
00:43:32
Speaker
Oh my god. November 21st. What? Okay, so basically exactly a year after it was released. Yeah.
00:43:45
Speaker
All right. You want to come out here for Christmas again? Or not Christmas, Thanksgiving again? Ooh. You never know. Come out here and then my car will die again and we'll live it all over again. We'll just go buy you a new car over Thanksgiving next year, this year. Or at least another Uber to the movie theater. Oh my goodness. Oh my god. um Yeah, anyway, so.
00:44:12
Speaker
who Yeah, point being though. In the same way that it it's a it's a mark of like ah a matured critical thinking process to be able to think about and talk about and consider ah new ideas without needing to incorporate them into your belief system. I believe it's important to have conversations about and be thinking about and have consideration for workings or subject matter that doesn't necessarily mean that you are incorporating it into your repertoire. And it starts with the conversations, though. And that's, again, that's why. Yeah. I mean, we obviously have shown that we are going to cover a massive array of subjects.
00:45:10
Speaker
the Um, and it's not that we have made it our mission and are diving into exclusively talking about dark subject matter. Um, not at all, but it is a major part of why we're doing what we're doing to be able to talk about those things as well as.
00:45:33
Speaker
Well, especially, I should say, especially to explore the nuance, because like, sure, there's light magic, there's dark magic, there's also gray magic. And we're not only going to, we're not, I'm not only referring to us talking about magic in this regard. There is so much that exists in a gray area. Right, right.
00:45:56
Speaker
there's so much nuance that occurs where like people it is so I feel like we were talking about this last night or something where it's like why do people jump to this like this or that conclusion all the time and it's like it's because they don't want to do the work of exploring or considering nuance in a situation and like it is so much easier to just be like to just to just live with black and white thinking and this is why this is why you know fundamentalist christians get so popular you know why they why they have any traction at all is because it is so much easier to stick with the black and white thinking yeah the all the way good or all the way evil it's why i love the kushiel series
00:46:50
Speaker
independently of all the recommendations that led us to even start to consider reading them. very It exists, at least the first trilogy, it exists almost entirely in a gray area. And like, I love it it. It adds such depth, such richness to the stories, to the details, to life, you know? But yeah, this has been a fun discussion.
00:47:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's is worth digging into and discussing,
Witches as activists and empowerment
00:47:25
Speaker
you know. We'll be revisiting it. More than likely. Absolutely. The more I learn, the more we can talk about. Absolutely. And it's like, regardless of if it's talking about dark magic or just sending anything in the like gray area territory of like life.
00:47:45
Speaker
Yeah, I want to talk about it. Absolutely. And once again, I'm going to encourage people to chime in if you've ever done any sort of workings and like, how did it go for you? What sort of stuff did you use? How did you feel about it? Yeah, I'm really interested in hearing about that stuff as well. Send us an email.
00:48:07
Speaker
And if you want us to, you know, if if you're comfortable with us reading whatever you write, you know, let us know because It'd be cool to be able to do that, but also only if you want us to and not, you know, we're not going to be taking any liberties with people's private stories and information. So, um, but, but yeah, like I.
00:48:29
Speaker
Again, I would love to be able to continue this discourse with like other people's input too. so yeah and and Frankly, without implicating that we are encouraging anybody to do anything, I feel like exploring these more offensive types of workings in this time of history that we're living in right now is a very empowering tactic.
00:48:58
Speaker
right Personally, that's gonna that's how I'm going to choose to view it because we kind of don't have much else. the um Activism is wonderful and it's beautifully empowering, but it is also really hard work and activism can be done in so many different ways.
00:49:20
Speaker
So if you're a witch, you need to also be an activist. Yeah, that's kind of like the tradition of a witch, isn't it? It is. that's absolutely That's the perfect word for that. Thank you. It is the tradition of a witch to be an activist. It's always been in my soul, and it's only I'm only coming just now to a place where I feel confident in my power.
00:49:49
Speaker
And I'm grateful for that. I am really grateful for that. I'm still in my learning phase. I mean, I, I am too. I guess you never stop learning though, honestly. Yeah. Yeah. We're always in our learning phase. But yeah, obviously only ever do what you feel confident and comfortable doing. But like you said at the beginning, it's a fair and I think rational thing to not rule anything out. Yeah.
00:50:17
Speaker
sweet.
Self-care as protest and community support
00:50:18
Speaker
So in conclusion, never say never.
00:50:25
Speaker
oh Well, friends, it's that time. It's getting late. And friends, we hope you've had such like just as much of a good time as we have. Yay. And once again, I want to remind you to hold fast to your community in these times.
00:50:47
Speaker
And remember to take care of yourself. And especially that taking care of yourself and getting rest. Especially that one is a form of protest. Yes, it is. Never forget it. And remind your friends and family, because this is a marathon, not a sprint. That's for sure. So everybody, I hope you have a beautiful day or evening.
00:51:14
Speaker
And we'll be back again next week. Bye, friends. We will be back next week with more from the dungeon of Molly and Christina. Oh my god.
00:51:27
Speaker
Not wrong.
00:52:03
Speaker
heard me talking about owls attacking somebody and and he's just like, if owls are attacking people, keep me indoors.