Casual Temple

TRANSCRIPT

(Transcript is auto-generated; errors are unintentional.)

00:00:02 Merrily

Welcome to the Casual Temple podcast episode 25, and I'm your host, Merrily Duffy at the Casual Temple. Our mission is to discover our connection to the unseen world of spirit, and how that empowers us to know our true selves a little favor before we begin, please follow or subscribe and hit that heart-shaped like button on your favorite podcast, Platt.

00:00:20 Merrily

Turn on the episode today. I'm so thrilled to have Joanna, also known as the Polish folk, which as our guest Joanna, shares with us her animist folklore and ancestor based magic, which involves the deep folk traditions of Poland. We learned how Joanna at the very young age of three was communicating with spirits. Then how mystical experiences led to her discovering her path of witchcraft and spirit.

00:00:41 Merrily

Work Joanna has a really robust and active Patreon and I encourage you all to check out all the cool work she and her members are doing there, so stay tuned to the Casual Temple podcast where it's Halloween every day.

00:00:54 Merrily

Welcome to the Casual Temple. This week, we welcome our guest Joanna, also known as the Foolish Folk Witch. Joanna is an animist practitioner of folk loric tradition. Joanna is an animist practitioner of folklore, traditional witchcraft, and Polish folk magic. Joanna is also a writer.

00:01:14 Merrily

Psychologist content creator, art therapist and artist, as well as an autogenic training facilitator and much, much more. In addition to all of that, it's amazing. So I'm so honored to have Joanna on the show today.

00:01:28 Joanna

Thank you so much for having me. And I know that was a mouthful of of an introduction. Thank you. So.

00:01:34 Merrily

Much thank you for being so patient with me as stumbling over a little bit of it, but that's amazing. Like so much stuff you do and I just want to like a fangirl a little bit. You have a really wonderful Patreon.

00:01:47 Merrily

And we're going to talk about that for sure.

00:01:49 Merrily

But.

00:01:49 Merrily

It's wow, you just the stuff you offer. I've never seen it, and it's some and other patreons that I have. And it's so well thought out and considered.

00:01:59 Merrily

And anyway, it's just wonderful. So I thank you so much for having that available for people.

00:02:05 Joanna

Thank you so much, I'm really grateful and always like happy to hear how people actually respond to what I put out there because I know that's like a lot of different pockets of things that ioffer. So it's not for everybody, but I'm happy to be talking about this some more today as well.

00:02:16

Yeah.

00:02:20

Yeah.

00:02:20 Merrily

Yeah, yeah, I definitely. Me. Personally, I see where all the the different things, but they overlap quite well in my opinion, my little opinion.

00:02:29 Merrily

Glad to hear. OK. So we're just going to jump in to, you know, a little topic of what was, was there an event in your life that puts you on the current either spiritual or magical path that you're on today?

00:02:47 Joanna

Hmm, I think I could answer this a few different ways, but I guess I'm going to answer this from the perspective of the path that I follow, which is folk magic and traditional witchcraft. And when you look at how the traditional law describes those kinds of experiences that put people on their paths.

00:03:07 Joanna

For me, that would be very, very early on in my life. Actually, when I was only three years old, which was a strange happening where I woke up in the middle of the night.

00:03:18 Joanna

And I saw the devil, which I know sounds crazy. Yeah, but that's that's what was my first that I actually remember. My first kind of encounter with the spirit world. And I have to say that from that point on until today, spirit, work and spirit contact has been something that's always been.

00:03:38 Joanna

Being present for me.

00:03:40 Joanna

And it kind of forced me in a way to uh, take up on the path of witchcraft. Learn how to kind of maybe work with control. What I can see, feel here and and so on. So I feel like I didn't have much choice in a way in becoming a witch.

00:04:01 Joanna

Which I know I'm not the only one to feel this way. I know for certain people like it differs. Some people choose this. Some people are kind of forced by initiatory experiences. Some people may be born into it through, you know, family members who.

00:04:17 Joanna

Kind of teach them this stuff. For me. It was kind of, as I said, just something that happens to me very early on and I had no choice but to adapt to the reality that was presented to me. And that's basically how I've been kind of rolling. Yeah, or.

00:04:34 Joanna

Past 30 plus years of my life. So yeah, I don't want to go into detail about the kind of experience that it was cause.

00:04:43 Joanna

Initiative experiences can be very tricky and when you explain it to people like you know the UPG staff, personal noses, it basically sounds like you're tripping on something, but I'm sure people who are into witchcraft can pretty much imagine what this could look like, so I'm just going to stop myself at this.

00:05:03 Merrily

Ohh yeah, I totally get what you're you're saying. I think the only person I really talked to for the most part is my husband, right? Because he knows me and we talk all the time.

00:05:12 Joanna

MM.

00:05:12 Merrily

Time. So yeah, so it is. And then what I have told other people, I'm like, oh, sounding a little. Yeah, I can see how this sounds weird. Yeah. So I I get relatable. Yeah, exactly.

00:05:23 Merrily

Yeah.

00:05:27 Merrily

So kind of with that, did you have support or guidance, you know as a three-year old like did you have people in your life that were helpful for you or even as you got older or some support there?

00:05:39 Joanna

You know, I would like to differentiate here also like having experiences that early on does not actually like automatically mean that I've been a wedge since three years old, so.

00:05:51 Joanna

That needs to be said because I know some people will get like those ideas that I that's what I might be thinking. Definitely not. But I started practicing. I chose this path consciously when I was around 15 years old and at that point I didn't really have access to people who could actually guide me in this.

00:06:11 Joanna

So you know, it was the usual books. Whatever I learned from.

00:06:17 Joanna

And my own discernment, I guess. And that continued for a very long time. I'm. I always used to be somebody who's not a huge fan of authorities and are trusting in figures to, you know, best all knowledge upon you and basically relying on like gurus and that kind of.

00:06:37 Joanna

Stuff. So for the longest time I've been solitary and just learning from books and experience in my late 20s, I decided to be more open and join a coven, which was my experience for a few.

00:06:51 Joanna

Years. So that's where I, I guess gained some human guidance for the first time. And that was really enlightening in ways that I think I wouldn't be able to otherwise access. But since then, it's been some time since I kind of came back to being solitary, and I have to say that.

00:07:11 Joanna

For the most part, there wasn't much support or guidance for me to be able to access throughout life in general, yeah.

00:07:20

Hmm.

00:07:21 Merrily

Oh, OK. Wow. Really cool path. Yeah, I definitely again, I resonate with sort of the authority figure thing.

00:07:29 Merrily

You know from I'm sure you could relate as well as like lived experience of, like hearing the things that they say and you're like that is not right. Like I just know it in my bones. Yeah, that's not right.

00:07:39 Joanna

Yeah, exactly.

00:07:41

Yep.

00:07:42 Joanna

That's something that's really hard to kind of get over because at one point, like nobody likes to be alone.

00:07:45 Merrily

Yeah.

00:07:48 Joanna

Nobody. Nobody likes to have to do all of this without having people to trust and to compare stuff with, etcetera.

00:07:50

Yeah.

00:07:57 Joanna

But at the other hand, like you can see, so many people taking advantage of other people in the spiritual circles in general, it's just hard to trust.

00:08:07 Merrily

Yeah. Yeah, that's yeah, I agree.

00:08:11 Merrily

Can't say it any better.

00:08:14 Merrily

So my next question is pretty funny because.

00:08:15 Merrily

I know that you read.

00:08:17 Merrily

A lot. Yeah. You read a lot. I remember like either a post or somewhere in discord that you had mentioned, like, how many books you read it, you know, all the.

00:08:18 Joanna

I do.

00:08:25 Merrily

Time, like at a time, and I was like.

00:08:27 Merrily

Yes. What? So my next question, what were some of your favorite books that kind of did sort of help you along your path that you can want to mention?

00:08:36 Joanna

Mm-hmm.

00:08:37 Joanna

I prepared for this actually, because I want to make sure that I not only talk about some books and authors, but also show some books about the topics, mostly that we're going to be talking about today.

00:08:44

Oh cool.

00:08:48 Joanna

Which is anyway like most of what I do and what I'm interested in. So starting with Polish folk magic, because that's like the main thing I do and talk about.

00:08:59 Joanna

I want to say like 90% of my reading material suddenly is not available in English. It's only in my native language which which is Polish and and a lot of that is, you know, actually not.

00:09:13 Joanna

Books written by fellow practitioners. It's mostly books written by researchers, so like ethnographers, anthropologists, folklorists.

00:09:23 Joanna

That kind of stuff, and I find that you can kind of glean the most out of that kind of material because they try and preserve many of the practices from way, way, way back in an unchanged and uninterpreted form. So then you can kind of make up your own mind about that. But I do have two books that are.

00:09:29

Yeah.

00:09:44 Joanna

Actually also available in English for people who are specifically interested in Polish folk magic or kind of the Polish flavor of traditional witchcraft.

00:09:54 Joanna

And that would be, let me just grab them. First and foremost, this book, I don't know how well this is seen here. Probably not not that well. It's called between the the devil and the host. Imagining witchcraft in early modern Poland by Michael Ostling. This book is a treasure trove.

00:10:14 Joanna

When it comes to the practices of Polish.

00:10:16 Joanna

Which is their kind of heretical stuff that they did. And they believed in and also the kind of summary of which trial records and all of that, it's really, really juicy. It's not maybe so easily available because I have to say like academic works which both of the books I'm going to be talking about.

00:10:38 Joanna

Here in this context are academic. They are kind of harder to get or more expensive, which honestly sucks that academia.

00:10:46 Joanna

Kind of places itself somewhere above like the average, you know, person and makes it less accessible for people outside of academia. But it is what it is. But if you are into Polish folk magic and want to read something in English, I think it's worth the investment. So this one and the other one.

00:11:02

The.

00:11:05 Joanna

I just need to open this because I actually have a Polish translation of a book written in English by a Polish person. Alright, it's confusing, I know so.

00:11:16 Joanna

Yeah. Let me just see. Yeah. So the original title is witchcraft in early modern Poland from 1500s to 1800s by Vanda, with Porsche A. This is what the Polish edition looks like, but the original is actually in English. And same. This one provides a lot of that.

00:11:36 Joanna

Kind of juicy historical material when it comes to, you know, spells, the approach of Poly.

00:11:41 Joanna

Twitters as well as a lot of kind of historical and social context of how that magic developed in this particular region. So I find both of these being very valuable for people who want to dig into this stuff. If you want to be a folk, which you need to be kind of prepared to dig into a lot of.

00:12:02 Joanna

Obscure sources and find that stuff and then document it for yourself or catalog it for yourself to be able to actually use it in practice. So that's when it comes to Polish folk magic.

00:12:12

Mm-hmm.

00:12:15 Joanna

Now moving on to animism, because this is something we're we're going to be talking about today as well. Yeah, this book, this is a classic animism, respecting the living world by Graham Harvey. This is like the base for if you are interested in animism, this is the first book you should probably reach for.

00:12:35 Joanna

It was just recently reprinted in a much more kind of affordable version, the one that I have here.

00:12:40 Joanna

Actually, and it explains all you need to know about animism and compares like different cultures for you to be able to understand how animism works in different cultures around the world. So very, very valuable. Now moving on to more witchy stuff, I guess.

00:13:00 Joanna

That I really like in English.

00:13:04 Joanna

I am going to be mentioning authors and just showcasing one book by each of them, because otherwise we will be here forever. But my 3 fave authors in English for traditional witchcraft slash folk magic would be first of all, Roger J Horn and here I have folk witchcraft. This book is kind of like a foundational.

00:13:25 Joanna

Look for this kind of practice in English. I highly recommend it. It's very accessible, very easy to read and very kind of open for people no matter what culture you come from. You can use this book to kind of create a foundation in folk magic practice for yourself.

00:13:44 Joanna

The next author would be Lee Morgan and here I have one example of his work I did without a name. This is kind of an introduction into traditional witchcraft lore. I find that this book and I've seen it in action, it can change minds. Literally, if somebody doesn't understand.

00:14:04 Joanna

The whole, you know, interest that's happening right now when it comes to folk magic and traditional witchcraft, if they read this book, I am pretty sure that they.

00:14:15 Joanna

They will understand and maybe even get converted.

00:14:18 Joanna

You could say.

00:14:19 Joanna

Quote UN quote. So definitely recommend because it explains a lot of the things that are not really talked about that much I guess and explained in many of those books. And lastly also Claude Lechtal, this is a French author, but many of his books.

00:14:35 Joanna

Were translated. This is just one example. Demons and spirits of the land, but he has a lot, a lot of publication publications, they are.

00:14:45 Joanna

Also, kind of more academic where he talks about basically law of the land, of the spirits, folklore, stories, traditions from all around Europe usually and kind of creates comparisons between different traditions in specific European regions, which I find.

00:15:05 Joanna

All of his books are just great if you want to gain a a wide perspective on folk traditions and thus also practices of traditional witchcraft.

00:15:16 Joanna

And that's pretty much it when it comes to the things that I want to recommend today, those authors definitely.

00:15:24 Joanna

I think if you start with them, you're going to save yourself a lot of time, kind of sifting through the books that are available these days because there's just so much, honestly.

00:15:34 Merrily

Yeah, wow. Yeah, I definitely am. Like now I need like this new stack of books because they all sound so cool. Yeah. Thank you for that recommendation. Oh, my gosh. Of course. I did kind of want to.

00:15:46 Merrily

I didn't want to go off track of, like talking about sort of where I'm coming from, but just to kind of relate. So my mother is Filipino and my dad is Irish American. And so both of those cultures and this, I'm I'm going somewhere with this, but both of those cultures have had sort of like, you know, because of colonialism has had a lot of their.

00:16:07 Merrily

Traditional practices kind of just lost quote UN quote lost for the.

00:16:12 Merrily

Part. But I kind of feel like maybe with your practice a lot of it is and you, you know, it's like through folklore and that like, I think a lot of that could just really be, you know, looking at the stories of.

00:16:28 Merrily

Of the land and the people, I think you can kind of you know mine that as like a Filipino excuse me as a Filipino American or as a Irish American to kind of build like a new not identity necessarily but like a new practice because it feels like it's totally gone but maybe.

00:16:47 Merrily

Maybe it isn't, you know.

00:16:49 Joanna

You know, I think.

00:16:51 Joanna

These days we don't talk as much about stories anymore, and I feel like the younger people are not so much interested in listening to their grandmas and grandpas hearing about their lived experiences, the things that they were taught, and the things that they're they believed about the land, about how certain things are done in the household.

00:17:13 Joanna

During the family.

00:17:14 Joanna

So I feel like that is the main reason for why things may feel like they are lost, but if we get interested, if we get out there to the actual community of like your diaspora for example, and ask the elders, they have so much wisdom, so much knowledge to bestow on us.

00:17:34 Joanna

Everywhere around the world, really. And even here in Poland, it's not like everybody is born and automatically gets all this knowledge. It's not like that. I know that often when I talk to people from the Polish diaspora.

00:17:48 Joanna

They kind of assume that if you are here then you know everything by default.

00:17:53 Joanna

It's not like.

00:17:54 Joanna

That really cause, like the modern times, are a thing everywhere in the world. And here as well. The younger generation doesn't really care about these things as much, so it takes effort, time and actually, as I said, going out there.

00:18:08 Joanna

And asking the the elders looking for those stories, listening to them to recover that to, as you say, kind of be able to build a practice of of.

00:18:17 Joanna

That and to I think get routed really into your identity as coming from a specific culture of having a specific ancestry. So yeah, I totally agree with you that that's how it goes. But I feel like it's not only an issue in the US, you know, for people who migrated, but for everybody.

00:18:21

Hmm.

00:18:38 Joanna

Globally.

00:18:39 Merrily

Yeah, wow. Yeah. Beautifully said. Yeah, it definitely. Uh, I love that you were like, go talk to talk to your grandma and grandpa, maybe talk to your mom, your dad, that you, you know, they might have some great information, too. That's. I love that. Thank you.

00:18:54 Merrily

OK, so you know we kind of touched a little bit about your current path. If you can kind of give us a little bit of an idea of what your path looks like, meaning like kind of what do you do either daily or you know monthly or like something if that makes sense to?

00:19:11 Joanna

Do that? Of course. Yeah. So what I do, as I mentioned.

00:19:14 Joanna

Is folk magic and traditional witchcraft. So that means that my practice is very much rooted in the land, in bioregional processes that occur the seasons.

00:19:27 Joanna

Kind of observing the nature around you and actually interacting with it, not just reading about it on Wikipedia. You know, so it is a lot of it has to do with forging connections with the world around you. And I'm going to touch more on this when we talk about animalism because I feel like animism.

00:19:46 Joanna

Really is at the root of traditional wedge graph and of folk magic. So without the kind of foundation of perceiving the world as a living Organism that we are part of.

00:20:01 Joanna

I feel like the practice of witchcraft is kind of empty so.

00:20:07 Joanna

Saying that this way, I know it may seem controversial to some, but when you read witchcraft material and folk magic material, especially the kind of more historical sources you will find out that spirit work is really at the core, that everything that which does.

00:20:25 Joanna

It's not like you are some kind of superhero with, you know, extra powers that nobody else possesses. We are all the same. We all can do this stuff, but it's it's not something that you do as an individual because you have power because you are powerful. It's something that you do as a result of having relations with spirits.

00:20:45 Joanna

With the land, with the plants, with your ancestors, with your rules. Right. So that's kind of the foundation of my practice. What it looks like day-to-day. I usually on a regular basis because I'm forging those relationships and cultivating.

00:21:03 Joanna

Them that means I will definitely be giving offerings to my ancestors, to the household spirits, to the spirits of the land and spirits kind of residing in specific places in wilderness where I also kind of have forged those connections. I will be feeding that relationship.

00:21:24 Joanna

By giving them offerings and gifts to, you know, it's kind of like forging a friendship with somebody. You just want to make sure that they know that you love them, care for them. That's a big part for sure. That's something that's you always do. You always remember to give those offerings and thanks.

00:21:43 Joanna

Other than that, seasonal practices, so some people and it's very popular to talk about the wheel of the year and how you practice those sabbaths. It's about around the wheel of the year in folk magic, it's a bit different. You are not really practicing those eight sub parts in particular.

00:22:02 Joanna

It's mostly practicing kind of holidays that are, uh, particular to your culture. So for example, for me as a Polish Polish folk, which that means that I would be celebrating.

00:22:18 Joanna

Like Saints days like feast, days of specific Saints, because if you know a bit more, you know that the Saints before they were Saints, they were actually land spirits that were kind of turned or synchronized to become Saints post Christianization. And the same when it comes to the main kind of.

00:22:38 Joanna

Christian.

00:22:39 Joanna

And specifically here, Catholic celebrations that are seasonal which overlap with the wheel of the year by the way. So you know Christmas of course would be the winter solstice. And like, I don't know, Ostara would be we call Ostara, yeah, I go there by the way.

00:22:59 Joanna

That would be like related to Easter and all of that stuff like this is common knowledge, I think, but.

00:23:06 Joanna

In folk magic, you are not really drawing from like outside sources. For example, I wouldn't be celebrating the Celtic wheel of the year because I am not Celtic and it does not apply to the land where I live so.

00:23:20 Joanna

Basically what I'm trying to say here is that you are celebrating the changes in the land and kind of going through the cycles as you age and as you kind of go through life. So does everybody and everything around you, right, the land, the plants, the.

00:23:36 Joanna

Animals and you kind of celebrate life through that through the cycles of the seasons. And so they will always be kind of a bit different depending on where you live, because the main thing that determines how you practice is how your land is actually responding to the seasonal changes, which is different everywhere.

00:23:56 Joanna

Depending on you know the geographical location. So that's why the bioregionalism of folk magic is so important.

00:24:05 Joanna

My practice and other than that, some of the things that I also do would have to be a lot of trans work because it's kind of foundational for spirit communication. So you know, we are also, I think, gonna be touching on this a bit more later. But you know, Spirit Flight flying to the Sabbath.

00:24:26 Joanna

Kind of, you know, communing with spirits outside of where you are. So in folk magic and traditional witchcraft.

00:24:34 Joanna

It's not so common to actually be calling spirits to you, which is very popular like in ceremonial magic, for example, right where you are invoking or evoking spirits to your space, to the circle or to the triangle. Invoke magic. You usually go to them instead, so it's not always like everything needs to be.

00:24:54 Joanna

Around me coming to me, I'm not the center of the universe. On the contrary, I'm just a, you know, tiny, tiny being who wants to.

00:25:02 Joanna

To cultivate right relations with the land and with other beings, so I need to be doing some work for that and maybe going to those spirits instead of them coming to me, if that makes sense. So yeah, there's a lot of that. There's a lot of also working through, you know.

00:25:21 Joanna

The answers to all stuff to put it very broadly, which means not only cultivating relations with the ancestors, but also working through the inherited things like traumas.

00:25:33 Joanna

Like some behaviors that might be ingrained in your bloodline, basically to heal that right. So there is that aspect as well.

00:25:46 Joanna

I'm trying to think if there's anything major that I missed. Of course, divination and like cultivating all those skills that I think any magical practitioner cultivates. I also do that too. So yeah, I think.

00:26:00 Joanna

That's about it, really.

00:26:01 Merrily

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I love the description around creating relationships with the lands.

00:26:09 Merrily

Yeah, and especially your specific land because you know it, it is so different. You have different plants, you have different animals, the the shape of the land is different.

00:26:19 Merrily

And you know, I live in Seattle, so that's something where you, you know, there's a lot of like, understanding of what Seattle is if you don't live here. And then there is the understanding of what Seattle is if you do live.

00:26:30 Merrily

There, and the spirits of the land here are very strong, like very, very strong and very vocal. So yeah, I I love that you put it that way because I think there's maybe a disconnect for a lot of people of, like, putting those two things together. So thank you for walking us through that was.

00:26:47 Merrily

Awesome.

00:26:49 Joanna

Yeah, I hope I wasn't too rambly, but.

00:26:50 Merrily

No.

00:26:51 Joanna

I know it's kind of a lot to explain in some ways, but.

00:26:54 Joanna

Yeah, I think I think the land connection is really at the pace of many of those practices.

00:27:00 Merrily

And thanks for walking through like how especially being in Poland, how it's different than you know, you know, your Polish traditional witchcraft is different than like other people's, I guess. So that was very cool.

00:27:14 Joanna

I'm glad.

00:27:15 Merrily

Yeah. So what would you say? Because.

00:27:17 Merrily

There's a lot of.

00:27:19 Merrily

I don't know either a misconception or sort of broad brushing of what witchcraft is. What do you believe is the most important thing to understand about witchcraft that maybe people don't get?

00:27:32 Joanna

MMM.

00:27:34 Joanna

OK, I think witchcraft became a really popular term to use and also the label of the which became very popular for people to apply to themselves as part of their identity. And I think with that what witchcraft is became very.

00:27:54 Joanna

Expansive, I guess, to the point where I guess people don't really differentiate that.

00:27:56

MHM.

00:28:02 Joanna

Much anymore. Between paths of the OR cold. Broadly speaking, where somebody might be practicing like ceremonial magic but call themselves a witch, which technically is not the same thing, right? Like if you practice ceremonial magic, this is. This has very different foundations than witchcraft.

00:28:23 Joanna

And I'm not like trying to compare which path is better or worse, because that's not a thing. Yeah, but I think.

00:28:31 Joanna

We became kind of loose with those labels and as a result of that, witchcraft became pretty much anything you make of it online. I mean, at least when people talk about it, it's often kind of discussed that.

00:28:39 Joanna

Hmm.

00:28:46 Joanna

You know you're not supposed to tell other people if they can or cannot identify as witches.

00:28:53 Joanna

Which I think fair enough. I'm not here. Like to police anybody's life, practice or anything. But I think sometimes people forget to kind of research. What does this actually mean? Where does this term come from? You know, the kind of basics, because if you do that, if you check what historically, what witchcraft is, it's.

00:29:13 Joanna

A practice that is very much rooted in the land and usually was practiced by people who were of the kind of lower layers of society, right? So like the peasants, the, you know, far.

00:29:28 Joanna

Immers the kind of simple folk you could say, whereas other practices like ceremonial magic for example, right, which we were just kind of comparing that was mostly reserved for people who could read who had an education, who had access to stuff that was expensive, like being able to import.

00:29:48 Joanna

Some intents from the other side of the globe, etcetera. So that was basically kind of reserved for people who were privileged, whereas witchcraft, the opposite of that. And I feel like these days these things are not really perceived through this lens anymore. Yeah, and.

00:29:57 Merrily

Hmm.

00:30:07 Joanna

I think in some ways that's great that anything is accessible to anybody, like for example, you don't have to be rich to be able to practice ceremonial magic anymore because everybody has access to things due to capitalism and globalization, right. But anyway, coming back to the whole bridge.

00:30:26 Joanna

Of thing and what I think is kind of.

00:30:28 Joanna

The most important to understand about witchcraft is that it's rooted in the land. It's rooted in animism. It's rooted in the sample connections that don't really require you to have, like a big brain big education, you know, sort of background to be able to cultivate. It's available to everybody.

00:30:48 Joanna

It's a way to be able to improve your life where you have nothing else at your disposal where you have no privilege.

00:30:56 Joanna

You have no access to, maybe even like basic needs in your life to have them fulfilled. That's where witchcraft comes in, and I think that's what needs to be remembered about this practice. That's really at the end of the day, it's between you and the land and nothing else really, right? So nobody can really stand in in your way.

00:31:16 Joanna

In your path when it comes to.

00:31:18 Merrily

That, yeah. Wow. Beautifully explained. Yeah, I I love that you also drew the connections of, like, the historical basis of it.

00:31:26 Merrily

And you know how it was for people who couldn't travel or get goods from far away, and you're literally you literally are building that connection with the things around you and the beings and the and the land. So.

00:31:39 Joanna

Yeah. Because when you look at it like the basic practices of those paths, I'm comparing the two because they have like the most kind of contrast between them.

00:31:42

Yeah.

00:31:47 Joanna

Like basic practices of ceremonial magic take hours a day, like to commune with your holy guardian Angel, you need to be like, celebrate for 18.

00:31:47 Merrily

Yeah.

00:31:56 Joanna

Months. You need to have like a separate house where you can.

00:31:59 Joanna

Be alone and.

00:31:59

Right.

00:32:00 Joanna

Do these things for like 2 hours in the morning, two hours in the evening, every single day for a prolonged period of time. Like who can afford that?

00:32:08 Joanna

Only like some, you know, old rich guys somewhere, right? You know what I mean? Whereas witchcraft, when you look at the historical aspects of it, it's like protection and magic to make sure that you don't die. Your family doesn't die. Your cattle doesn't die like your house doesn't burn down. Basically that kind of stuff. It survival. It comes.

00:32:13

Yes.

00:32:28 Joanna

Some survival and like making sure that we can, at least.

00:32:33 Joanna

Believe that we have some chances of surviving in a world where you have no access to medicine, no access to education, no access to like living with dignity. A lot of the times. So these backgrounds like when you compare them, it's two different worlds. And I think that needs to be.

00:32:49 Merrily

Remembered. Yeah. Beautifully explained. Thank you for walking us through that as.

00:32:55 Merrily

Crazy. Yeah, so I did. I did have this question and I was like, oh gosh.

00:32:56 Joanna

Thank you.

00:33:03 Merrily

So I feel like it kind of goes in because I feel like I know what the answer is and as an American, apparently I need to have you talk about us. So my the question is what is? What is something that you feel like you as an observer of American Western culture?

00:33:23 Merrily

Like, what do you feel could be beneficial for us to be more balanced cause being in it myself, it's looks like it's very unbalanced. So I have my own opinions about that, but I'm just curious what yours would.

00:33:35 Joanna

Mm-hmm. Observing it from the outside. I think that the history of the United States is kind of unfortunate in the way that most of the people, aside from the natives, of course, are people who came from somewhere else. So most people in America.

00:33:54 Joanna

Seem like they are very desperate to grasp to some roots. Feel rootless in a way and kind of desperately trying to connect to to their ancestry, and I understand why. Because when I look at my connections with the land with the ancestors and etcetera.

00:34:14 Joanna

I have to admit, it's hard for me to imagine just moving across the world somewhere and just leaving all of this behind. So I understand this kind of pain and ache that comes with the feelings of being ruthless, being away from those ancestral places.

00:34:34 Joanna

And I feel like what's missing a lot of the times and I know this is difficult and I don't try to come off here as having answers because I wouldn't dare honestly. But I think you guys need to find ways to be able to connect with the land where you are and kind of be.

00:34:55 Joanna

Accepted as part of that land, you know, because I feel people often are kind of scared. Maybe of connecting with the land, seeing it as maybe disrespectful to.

00:35:06 Joanna

The Native Americans, which of course is fair enough, but also when you look at it like I just recently learned that apparently in some states you're not allowed to even forge things like in the wilderness. To me, that's crazy because I can, like, go to the forest and I can forage, you know, the fruits, the mushrooms.

00:35:20 Merrily

Yeah.

00:35:26 Joanna

Whatever I find the herbs right?

00:35:28 Joanna

And it's OK, it's legal, whereas in in some spaces in America, it seems to be illegal to do that, which just strips you of this basic human rights to be able to connect with the land, to craft medicine from things that grow near you, right? To be able to actually engage with the land around you.

00:35:47 Merrily

Yeah.

00:35:50 Joanna

Like if that's illegal. Oh my God. Like I can just imagine the side effects of that for the human psyche. For your well-being, you know.

00:36:01 Joanna

So I know that this is something that's.

00:36:04 Joanna

Probably really hard to solve because that would take legal changes, right? That you just in politics, which is really difficult to do something about where you're just a regular person. But seeing that from the outside. To me, that's really heartbreaking.

00:36:22 Joanna

And unfortunate to witness.

00:36:25 Joanna

And when I talk about this with people who kind of engage with me and they share their stories of trying to connect back with the land here and like trying to find out more about their ancestry and, like, they their great grandma and where she lived.

00:36:40 Joanna

And what she.

00:36:41 Joanna

Did here you know stuff like that?

00:36:44 Joanna

I feel like.

00:36:46 Joanna

The balance is somewhere in between, like connecting with the land where you are and also incorporating the kind of history and stories of the people who are your ancestors who came where you are right now. OK, so.

00:37:00 Merrily

Yeah.

00:37:01 Joanna

That's how I see. See this. I know that this is probably not perfect and missing a lot of context because I'm out an outsider for you, but that's the best I can come up with.

00:37:12 Merrily

Ohh yeah, well I like that you put. You talked about sort of. Yeah, I was like, I didn't even think about that. Yeah, you're right. Like, we can't really go into the forest and, you know, take plants. You know, if I talked to, if I even said that to somebody here in Seattle, they'd be like, of course, you can't, of course. Why would you do that like you?

00:37:32 Merrily

So yeah, I didn't even think.

00:37:34 Merrily

About that, that's a.

00:37:34 Merrily

Really good perspective. I love it.

00:37:36 Joanna

Yeah. So I don't know, to me, it's crazy that you can only engage with the land if you purchased it.

00:37:42 Merrily

Yes, I know.

00:37:44 Joanna

That's just. Well, that's just mind blowing and heartbreaking simultaneously.

00:37:46

Yeah.

00:37:48 Joanna

To me, yeah, yeah, I love that. You. Yeah. Brought that up. It's good to think.

00:37:53 Merrily

About.

00:37:55 Merrily

OK. So we're going to talk about a very small subject and is.

00:38:02 Merrily

And of itself.

00:38:03 Merrily

And so you you definitely touched on it already, but can you kind of help describe it for somebody like who might be not even heard of the word before?

00:38:15 Joanna

OK. Yeah. I will probably go on a tangent.

00:38:18 Joanna

Here because I feel like it's an important subject and I feel like for me personally, it's important to make as many people aware of this as possible. I'm not here to like convert or anything.

00:38:31 Joanna

Just to you.

00:38:32 Joanna

Know preface this, but basically what animals is is the kind of.

00:38:38 Joanna

I suppose normative consciousness that you are born born with, but is stripped from you very early on in your life and this.

00:38:48 Joanna

Animus is basically the kind of perception of the world where you recognize that the world is absolutely full of living beings, not all of which are humans. So this includes everything. Everybody you can think of.

00:39:07 Joanna

That means animals, plants, spirits that are.

00:39:12 Joanna

And.

00:39:13 Joanna

Kind of non material. You could say. Spirits of places, of inanimate objects like rocks for example. Right. There's you could go into many, many many categories here. But to boil it down is the belief that the world is inhabited again by many beings.

00:39:33 Joanna

And humans are only a small fraction of all of those beings, and not this is not all of it, because the other very important part of animals, but not only recognizing that aliveness, but also trying to be.

00:39:51 Joanna

A good neighbor, a good friend trying to forge actual kind of respectful relationships with all of those beings around you. So the way an animalist lives.

00:40:04 Joanna

Is usually that you take into consideration not only your own good and the good of the humans around you, but also all of the other beings around you. That means that you would usually be very like environmentally conscious and stuff like that. This is how I could kind of boil it down.

00:40:24 Joanna

To make sure to kind of understand the basics of what animals.

00:40:29 Joanna

Is. But really when you look at it this way, it changes the entire way that you are living your life and relating to everything around you. It's not so easy anymore. If you recognize that, you know humans are not basically at the center of it, are not the most important.

00:40:50 Joanna

So human centrism goes out the window right away, and it's not so easy anymore to just go out into the world and trample everything around you and not care for its well-being because you recognize that it's alive and.

00:41:07 Joanna

Requires respect.

00:41:09 Joanna

Basically, so when we look at the way that.

00:41:10

Yeah.

00:41:14 Joanna

The Western world is living these days, and I mean when I'm saying the western world, I'm not just saying like, you know, I mean Eastern Europe. So that doesn't concern me. No, I'm part of that as well. The Western world in the way I'm trying to say here is people who are non indigenous basically. So not living by those ways that are connected with the land.

00:41:35 Joanna

Where they have been living for many generations, that's.

00:41:39 Joanna

Like 95% of humanity. Or maybe more that are living in the Western culture, you could say in a way which which is non animistic, which is based in like capitalism and basically like recognizing money as more important to be taken care of than, you know, all the living beings.

00:41:57 Merrily

Hmm.

00:42:00 Joanna

Including us.

00:42:01 Joanna

As well. So I guess yeah, maybe maybe that's how I would explain it. I think. Mm-hmm. And Speaking of books, I just remember I have one more. Actually, this is actually connected to this always. If somebody doesn't like reading like.

00:42:13

Alright.

00:42:20 Joanna

More academic sources when it comes to this and I have to say, like when it comes to animism, there's not many non academic sources yet. They are like coming out pretty much.

00:42:31 Joanna

Every month right now, but it's only been like maybe a year or two that this has really been picked up. But if you enjoy fiction and would like to engage in something that's just easier to digest, I would recommend this book, which is from the 90s. Actually this is by Daniel Quinn. The story of B, which is a very interesting.

00:42:47 Merrily

Hmm.

00:42:51 Joanna

Story of uh somebody who's basically going to it's an American guy who's going to Germany to preach animism, but nobody knows what this is because nobody heard about it before.

00:43:06 Joanna

And some Catholic like orders or whatever kind of learn about this guy and think that he's the Antichrist, so they send somebody over to investigate, and that's where the whole story kind of revolves around and I.

00:43:20

Uh-huh.

00:43:22 Merrily

Wow.

00:43:24 Joanna

Feel like this book?

00:43:25 Joanna

It's really engaging, it's super easy to read, but it explains to you so much about the background and one thing that I'd like to touch on that actually like so well explained in this book is how.

00:43:38 Joanna

Animism, where did it really sees being a thing? Because like it didn't happen overnight, right and.

00:43:46 Joanna

What's proposed in this book and the sources I've read that are more academic, also kind of support that, is that the moment we entered the era of the kind of agrarian revolution, so basically we stopped being hunter gatherers and we became farmers. That's where the whole change.

00:44:08 Joanna

Occurred because you know, as as soon as we.

00:44:11 Joanna

There, as long as we were hunter gatherers, we were not really. There weren't that many of us. We were kind of more you could. You could think about it this way, like there were maybe 20,000 humans, 20,000 deer, 20,000 toads. And you know, so on. So it was kind of more evenly spread out. And humans had this.

00:44:30 Merrily

Hers.

00:44:31 Joanna

Understanding that they are part of something.

00:44:35 Joanna

A very small part of something and they have to coexist, whereas with the agrarian revolution, when that occurred, it also helped people grow massively. So the numbers because of the easy access to food we started growing so, so, so much that we kind of forgot.

00:44:55 Joanna

That we were at some point, you know, just a small fraction of all of the living beings. Yeah. And we became the majority to the point where we forgot that the rest of the creation also matters and should be respected.

00:45:08 Merrily

Yeah.

00:45:10 Joanna

I really love this explanation because it kind of gives you background on how this could have potentially happened and the fact that.

00:45:18 Joanna

When you look at our culture, it was developed starting after the agrarian revolution. So we really don't even have like, thinkers from before that. We don't have our records of, you know, philosophers like you usually learn about, like ancient Greek philosophers and those kinds of.

00:45:37 Joanna

Dudes, they were already living in a time where they didn't even know that there was something before the agrarian revolution, so they were born thinking that man was born to rule the earth and everything. That's kind of put on the earth like animals, plants, everything is just there for us to use to our advantage.

00:45:59 Joanna

And that that's where we are today and I.

00:46:01 Joanna

Think it really.

00:46:01 Merrily

Yeah.

00:46:02 Joanna

Didn't go well, like 10,000 years later.

00:46:06 Merrily

They're like, oh.

00:46:07 Merrily

We didn't have the Longview.

00:46:09 Joanna

Yeah, I guess. But I mean, you can't really blame them, right? But yeah, we know that now and I think we can create change, yeah, it's probably gonna be hard cause like, yeah, you would kind of have to dismantle like, you know.

00:46:17

But.

00:46:23 Merrily

Just little things. Yeah, just little tiny things, yeah.

00:46:27 Merrily

Sure.

00:46:28 Joanna

But I hope like.

00:46:28 Joanna

This is giving your listeners A broader view on on those issues and how it kind of all started.

00:46:36 Merrily

Yeah. Wow. I can't. Yeah. I let you gave such a great encapsulated sort of thing based on this book, which again now it's added to the staff that I'm going to be reading, which is great.

00:46:48 Merrily

About like the agrarian society, right? That's 100%. Yeah, I've heard that kind of before, but not explained as well. So thank you. That's great.

00:46:58 Joanna

Yeah, happy to nerd out about this.

00:46:59 Merrily

Yeah, I know. It's like my favorite. Oh my gosh.

00:47:03 Joanna

This even. Sorry, I'm just gonna add this because I'm like such a nerd, but this also like impacted our spiritually is spirituality so heavily because like with the agrarian revolution, people started started praising mostly like agrarian gods. So those gods that help you, you know, have abundance and make sure that things grow.

00:47:04 Merrily

Yeah. Yes, please.

00:47:07 Merrily

Yes.

00:47:25 Joanna

Etc. Whereas before that, when people were still hunters and gatherers, they would mostly Revere deities that had to deal with making sure that the hunt is good, that the.

00:47:26

Mm-hmm.

00:47:37 Joanna

Animals that they are hunting, that those animals breed in numbers that help them replenish, etcetera, right. So you can kind of see that this also impacts not only you know capitalism and the kind of easy access to everything in in life that you have right now, but also our perception of spirituality.

00:47:56 Joanna

And the deities that we work with and the spirits that we relate to, etcetera. So it's like a complete shift in consciousness really for humans, where at the beginning before the revolution, you kind of had people who.

00:48:12 Joanna

You know we're coming from the.

00:48:15 Joanna

Animist perspective as a normative consciousness. This wasn't even something that those people would be naming as animism, right? They weren't really aware that they were animists. We can only see that now from the perspective of today. Whereas you know from that we came to people who are kind of disconnected from the broader.

00:48:34 Joanna

World and mostly concerned with ourselves and this, I would say, even toxic individuality, where it's all about you, about your comfort and the comfort of the people you love at best, right. Yeah. So very different.

00:48:51 Merrily

Yeah, yeah, my goodness.

00:48:55 Merrily

I can't. I can't not agree enough cause like I.

00:49:00 Merrily

And I love that you put that together. So I think I had read.

00:49:03 Merrily

Something.

00:49:04 Merrily

Or somebody had recommended a book about like Rome. You know Rome, right? And like this this central, you know, it's very patriarchal. It's about the family. And then, like, that's about it. It doesn't really extend beyond that. So yeah, that's a good that's a good point.

00:49:16

MHM.

00:49:20 Merrily

Ohh, amazing. Thank you.

00:49:22 Merrily

Yeah. So how OK? I don't even know. I asked. I have this question, but I feel like we'll we'll see where it goes. How do you view working with ancestors may or may not differ from working with spirits of the land?

00:49:39 Joanna

Hmm. Yeah, OK. OK. That's a good question actually. And I think it's good to be able to differentiate because if you deal with the spirit world in general, which both the ancestors and all the other spirits are spirits, right. So we need to be able to recognize who we are actually dealing with.

00:50:00 Joanna

It's.

00:50:01 Joanna

It's not really as common as people make it to be that there are those, you know, malicious spirits who are looking to **** you over, but that happens. So you need to be able to understand who you are dealing with. It's the same way that when you deal with people just getting to know somebody new, you need to be able to recognize potential red flags.

00:50:22 Joanna

And all of that to know who they are and what they are potentially going to bring into your life. So with that.

00:50:30 Joanna

Being said, I think that the main difference between working with the ancestors and the spirits is that especially if you work with blood ancestors, so ancestors with whom you share DNA doesn't matter how distant. You will already have a tiny level of familiarity with them because of that.

00:50:50 Joanna

Blood connection alone, which can make things easier.

00:50:55 Joanna

Does not have to necessarily. Sometimes you may have ancestors who are ********. That happens as well, and we have that in our bloodline. I feel most of us have something like that in our bloodline, but the familiarity does exist and oftentimes with the non ******* ancestors at least.

00:51:15 Joanna

Many of them will actually care about your well-being and about.

00:51:22 Joanna

You know, you kind of carrying on their line into the future, which I guess can help with connection, whereas with spirits for example, spirits of the land, you don't necessarily have that familiarity. You have to earn it from scratch. And I would say because of the way that we Live Today, you actually have to earn it from a.

00:51:42 Joanna

Sub minus position because we've as a as humanity.

00:51:47 Joanna

We've not been that good, you know, to the natural world in general. So many spirits might have beef with us by default, and you kind of have to show them that you are built different in a way earn their trust, earn their respect in a way. So this is, I would say, the main difference.

00:52:08 Joanna

That exists between working with ancestors and other spirits, but it doesn't have to be the case like.

00:52:14 Joanna

For example, ancestors are not just blood ancestors, they are. They are not just people who have something to do with your DNA. Ancestors can be also humans who lived on the land that you live on in the past. So land ancestors, right? You can even think about ancestors as.

00:52:34 Joanna

People who used to be working in the same profession as you many centuries ago and they could become your spiritual ancestors in helping guide you to do your job well, right? So ancestors can definitely.

00:52:49 Joanna

Be much broader than just blood and DNA and all of that. You can really, but what stands at the kind of forefront of it is that most of them are probably human, at least the ones that you can connect with most easily. But if you go way back like we came from Amber Bus, right? So like.

00:53:09 Joanna

Super simple organisms. Yeah. So if you look at it very broadly and from an animistic lens at the end of the day, all these periods could be seen as our ancestors to some degree. I know it gets kind of, yeah, convoluted in a way.

00:53:25 Joanna

But that's just the reality. I feel like that the spirit world doesn't really have the same kind of like hierarchies and categories that we have in our human society, where everything's really, like, compartmentalize a lot like people are put into categories based on so many things like gender, like where you work.

00:53:46 Joanna

What your country is, what your color of hair is, or eyes or whatever. What you prefer in terms of music or food or you know, it's just countless categories in this period world in general and in the natural world. I feel like that's.

00:53:56 Merrily

Yeah.

00:54:00 Joanna

Not the case.

00:54:01 Joanna

We don't have those higher, they don't have those hierarchies and those categories, everything's very like.

00:54:08 Joanna

More you could say blurry, but also just more free flowing in the sense that.

00:54:15 Joanna

If you look at those spirit connections more from their perspective, it doesn't really matter as much if it's an ancestor, a plant spirit or you know, a spirit of place, etcetera. It kind of all blends together if that makes sense.

00:54:29 Merrily

So yeah, yeah, for sure.

00:54:32 Merrily

And I like that you you talked about, like sort of the different.

00:54:35 Merrily

You know, we talked about categories, but they're like different sort of ancestors, whether it be your profession or the lands or your own DNA. And I think also because I talked to one of my previous guests, she does ancestral work, but she's adopted, right. And so that's like another thing because like most people think, like, well, how would you have?

00:54:56 Merrily

Connection cause they think it's only through bladder DNA connection, right? Yeah.

00:55:00 Joanna

Yeah, no, definitely not. And I think people who only perceive it through this lens of blood and DNA are kind of fixated on this sometimes to their own detriment and kind of going in.

00:55:06 Merrily

Yeah.

00:55:12 Joanna

Those territories that are, you know, kind of on the verge of like supremacy, you know, that kind of stuff, because if you are so fixated on your ancestry and like being so proud of your ancestors being like Viking or whatever, you know, because of people, right.

00:55:18 Merrily

Right.

00:55:19

Yeah.

00:55:29 Merrily

Yeah. Yeah, right. That can just get.

00:55:32 Joanna

Really dangerous, really fast. So I think it's important for people to understand that the ancestors aren't just your blood and DNA. It's so much more and are really just.

00:55:44 Joanna

Putting your ancestors dressing that small category and usually on based on some kind of DNA test that somebody does right, that's just so narrow minded honestly.

00:55:53

Yeah.

00:55:56 Merrily

Mm-hmm.

00:55:57 Merrily

Yeah. Oh, gosh, yeah. And then the other thing you said, you know, because I had done, you know, I've done ancestral work and one of the things is you look at your kind of your tree, right, if you can.

00:56:08 Merrily

Do some research on your tree.

00:56:10 Merrily

And I kind of was like Ohh looked into the tree it I think it went back to like 500 or something.

00:56:18 Merrily

And and it was like, oh, and then when you see how it sprouts, right, you're like, well, why wouldn't we all be related in summer? You know, I mean, you're just like, it's just sprouts so much.

00:56:27 Joanna

Right, there's.

00:56:28 Joanna

Many people, yeah.

00:56:31 Merrily

And it is kind of mind boggling because you're like, I guess we're all we're all related and in the same thing of like related DNA by blood, by the spirit world and the things around us. It's like, yeah, it's like.

00:56:44 Merrily

It's a lot, a lot to think about, but it's also.

00:56:46 Merrily

Very cool so.

00:56:47 Joanna

I agree, yeah.

00:56:50 Merrily

And so on your Patreon again, which I think people should definitely check out because it's so unique and wonderful offerings on there you had for recent your toad pond offering for February. You have this really cool, like overview about Spirit Flight and astral travel. So if you can talk about what that is for the audience.

00:57:12 Merrily

And yeah, and why and why do it?

00:57:14 Merrily

In the first.

00:57:15 Joanna

Place. Yeah, sure. I love this topic. Spirit flight and those types of adjacent practices like Trance work.

00:57:24 Joanna

They are foundational to my craft as I was mentioning earlier in a lot of ways because of the spirit work aspect, so I just love talking about this. Honestly, for people who are not aware, Spirit Flight could be perceived as a term that's specifically used in traditional witchcraft and folk magic.

00:57:45 Joanna

For something that maybe broadly more broadly people know as astral projection or out of body experiences, that kind of stuff.

00:57:53 Joanna

It's kind of, you know, again blurry because these experiences are not exactly experienced where when you are fully aware of everything you are kind of in an in between state of altered consciousness. So it's hard to really pinpoint like this is where spirit fight begins and ends. And this is where dream work.

00:58:12 Joanna

Taking that and ends they kind of, you know, can blend together, but basically all all these practices have to do with.

00:58:22 Joanna

Achieving a state where usually through trends, but there are other ways as well where you can kind of, I suppose, unshackle yourself from the physical reality in one way or another, in order to be able to travel to places, and this is often.

00:58:41 Joanna

In more like shamanistic perceptions of the world, people usually explain this as travelling to the other worlds, which would usually be like the underworld, the upper world, or somewhere in the middle world, right? So that's what you basically want to achieve with that. It's a spirit travel in a way. You could also see it this way.

00:59:01 Joanna

And you usually do that for purposes of doing anything and everything that has to do with spirit contract contact. Sorry. So you might just go out there to talk to somebody in particular to learn something or to finish some unfinished business with the answers, for example.

00:59:21 Joanna

But you might also go somewhere to do some actual work that you were assigned to do by the spirits that you work with. You might go out there just to explore and learn more about the world beyond the, you know, our physical reality.

00:59:35 Joanna

There's just so many things. Basically anything you can think of doing in the waking reality. You can also do that in Spirit Flight, but probably on different terms and with different rules, cause those worlds don't necessarily work the same way that our world does. You know where we are in our physical bodies so.

00:59:56 Joanna

I feel like those practices are really at the base of witchcraft practice. If you can enter a trans state, it's so much easier for you to achieve spirit contact and thus kind of collaborate on things that you want to do achieve the work that you need to do.

01:00:16 Joanna

You know, spells whatever, right? It's very versatile, so I don't know what else to add. Actually, I think that that's.

01:00:23 Joanna

Kind of the the base.

01:00:24 Merrily

Yeah. No, that's really great.

01:00:28 Merrily

Yeah, I think, I guess I do have one question about sort of like trance states. Yeah, I think people are very different in this like me personally I enter trance like super easy like it's just like either drumming or when I do, I do scrying like Black Mirror scrying and man, I just like.

01:00:45

Hmm.

01:00:46 Joanna

That's.

01:00:47 Merrily

Oh, it's it's awesome because like basically I'm sitting there and it's like poop. It's just like 1 little shift and it's like, oh, I'm seeing, like, the astral version of the room I'm in. Yes. And you're like, and then there's, like, being, like, being, like, kind of flowing through the room. And it's very weird, but very cool.

01:00:54 Joanna

Yes.

01:01:02

Yeah.

01:01:03 Merrily

Cool.

01:01:04 Joanna

I love that I love black mirrors crying as well, so I totally get what you mean.

01:01:08 Merrily

Oh, that's so cool because like I, I've tried to explain this to some folks. Maybe they're not experiencing the same thing. So they thank goodness. So I guess my question would be, what are some methods for folks who maybe have a harder time getting into trance that would assist them in spirit flight, for instance?

01:01:26 Joanna

Yeah, sure. You know what?

01:01:28 Joanna

I feel like this is such a.

01:01:29 Joanna

Very complex topic really, because anything can influence your ability to enter trans and like for example, for me I usually don't have that much of an issue, but for example when I was taking some new medication for half a year, I was unable to enter trans at all.

01:01:32 Merrily

It's true.

01:01:50 Joanna

Because it changed changed the my brain chemistry to the point where it was just impossible for me and there was nothing I could do. So I think people need to be aware of this, that this is not just purely like skill based and something that you can train and if you.

01:02:05 Joanna

In it you are like 100% sure to always achieve it. Sometimes, like the outside kind of factors can make it very hard or even unavailable for some time, and those are like as I mentioned for me for example the medication. But this can also be stress or like being in a new environment, going through some life changes. I don't know, having a ****** day.

01:02:27 Joanna

Or being on a specific day of your menstrual cycle, where things just don't.

01:02:31 Joanna

Line, there's just so many factors, so I want people to know that if this is not immediately working for you, it's not your fault and it doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong. It just could be any number of those outside factors that I mentioned, but.

01:02:47 Joanna

In general, I feel like when it comes to entering trans, everybody needs to find their preferred method.

01:02:53 Joanna

So like for example for you you mentioned black mirrors crying and how it's easy for you. I love that too. And it's so easy for me as well and I could even like describe step step by step what's always happening for me cause it's always the ******* same, right? So that tells me that it's reliable for me, but for somebody else they might be staring at the mirror and be like.

01:03:13 Joanna

What? What am I doing? Like what the **** is this? Right? Like this is useless and that's fine. Like that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with that person. They just need to find their own method. So we also mentioned drumming. I feel like drumming and basically using any type of primitive.

01:03:18 Merrily

Yeah.

01:03:28 Joanna

Instruments to play them in a rhythmic fashion, so repeating, repeating, repeating until you go in a state where your brain kind of gets bored to the point where it switches off and suddenly you are in a trans state. You are kind of, you know, everything feels more flowy and you are calm and relaxed and.

01:03:39 Merrily

Hmm.

01:03:48 Joanna

It's just so great, right? So, yeah, that's a good way for some folks. For others, it doesn't work at all. Again, right.

01:03:55 Joanna

Other things that you can try as various methods of scrying. We mentioned the mirror, but you can also scry in water outside like in a pond or something. Just looking at the moon for a prolonged period of time is great. Staring at a candle for example.

01:04:12 Joanna

What else? Uh, a hog stone, which is great. Is that stone with a hole inside? You? Look through that hole and things start to kind of shift and warp over time as well, and you can enter trans through that. You can also use like prayer beads for that. For some people, the repetition of going through the beads and breathing.

01:04:31 Joanna

Can be enough or like saying prayers or incantations for a prolonged period of time. All of this is about repetition, but you need to find your type of repetition that works for your brain. That helps kind of switch it off and kind of descend into the background so it doesn't get in the way. And doesn't you know.

01:04:50 Joanna

Just focus randomly on things to kind of take you out of that relaxed state cause trance will always feel relaxed unless there's one I would say.

01:05:03 Joanna

Kind of situation where it's different and that's the kind of trans state that you enter where you, for example, go into the forest at night.

01:05:10 Joanna

Alone.

01:05:11 Joanna

You can imagine like you are scared. Yeah, right. Your heart is crazy. Your your eyes are your pupils are dilated. You're just looking all over the place trying to detect danger and something that wants to kill you. Right, that also at some point, if you do that for a prolonged period of time, leads to a trans state.

01:05:16

Yeah.

01:05:32 Joanna

And I think that's very reliable because all of us get scared ******** when we do that.

01:05:38 Joanna

Probably not the most accessible, because we would rather avoid those types of situations, right? Yeah. But if somebody listening to this is brave enough and never like has had success entering.

01:05:51 Joanna

Maybe you can try this. Go out into the forest at night. Just see where it takes you, because at some point of being in the state of all your senses being so picked because you are looking for danger, right, trying to save your *** and not die. Basically, at some point your perception starts to shift and you begin to recognize.

01:06:01 Merrily

Yeah.

01:06:03

Yeah.

01:06:09 Merrily

Yeah.

01:06:11 Joanna

Patterns and that's where you can see spirits where you can hear them. When you can talk to them. Much easier than usual really so.

01:06:20 Joanna

That's, I would say the only type of translate where you aren't really relaxed, but the opposite.

01:06:25 Joanna

Of it, right?

01:06:26 Merrily

Yeah.

01:06:27 Joanna

But the other methods are usually just nice, calm, relaxing and you are entering through this relaxation state into a shift in consciousness where you can just perceive things a bit differently. It's kind of like a state.

01:06:40 Joanna

In between being awake and falling asleep like sometimes we experience that.

01:06:46 Joanna

Where you are so relaxed, like I'm sure most of people experienced this. You're almost falling asleep, but suddenly you have this like jerk reaction. Like you are suddenly awake and stuff like that. So you you just came out of the trans state of this kind of descent very, very deep into your body or very deep outside of it sometimes.

01:07:03

Mm-hmm.

01:07:05 Joanna

Right. So yeah, it's really interesting. It really kind of hard to put into words because everybody experiences that differently, but it's so, so fascinating to me. Honestly, I love talking about it and like experimenting with different methods. It's just something that I could nerd out about for.

01:07:13 Merrily

Yes.

01:07:16 Merrily

Yeah.

01:07:23 Merrily

Both forever. Ohh gosh. Yeah, it's very cool. Yeah, I love that you started out by talking about, like, everybody's biology. And you know how your brain works is different. So, you know, don't feel like.

01:07:35 Merrily

You can't do it. It's just, you know, you might have to try different methods. So I love that approach.

01:07:41 Joanna

It's very important. Yeah. We don't really want anybody to feel left out. And like, you don't have these special powers, so you don't belong in, you know, witchcraft practice. No, that's ********. Like everybody can do this. You just need.

01:07:44 Merrily

Yeah.

01:07:51 Joanna

To find your way.

01:07:52 Merrily

Yeah. Perfect. So in putting this material together, did you learn something new while doing it or?

01:08:01 Merrily

Alright.

01:08:01 Joanna

I don't think I have because everything I talk about and that's just generally the way I approach, like teaching or talking about things is that I talk from my experience. So I try to honestly, I try to avoid like going out into books and just picking something from the book and teaching it to folks as if it was something that I know.

01:08:03 Merrily

OK.

01:08:21 Joanna

First hand, I try to avoid that because I think that's not authentic. If it's not something that I've experienced myself and thus can.

01:08:30 Joanna

Talk about like if I was awakening in the middle of the night and you ask me about this, I can explain it easily. If that's not the case, then I'm not gonna be talking about it to people in a kind of teaching way. I feel that that just would be unfair to people. So honestly, I haven't learned anything new in putting this all together. It's mostly just, you know, my.

01:08:50 Joanna

Experience.

01:08:51 Merrily

OK, cool. Yeah, that's really good to know. So people can kind of trust that you've gone through the the difference, the bigger the role of, like figuring it out for yourself. So it's great.

01:09:03 Joanna

Yeah, definitely.

01:09:05 Merrily

So what are some upcoming projects or events that you would like for us to know about?

01:09:12 Joanna

Hmm, I feel like this year is very busy for me because actually I'm currently writing a book. It's going to be coming out hopefully next year in if everything.

01:09:20 Merrily

Ohh.

01:09:24 Joanna

Goes well, I can't talk about the details, sadly, because that's the reality of how things work these days. But you can kind of expect to read the book from me. That's about the things that we talked about today with special focus on on my background in Polish folk madrick. So that's very exciting. Other than that, something that I'm doing on a regular basis.

01:09:42

Sweet.

01:09:46 Joanna

Are the things that are the projects that are always ongoing on my page and which I have kind of two groups, two group projects that we do, first one is just a book club where we work through, you know, chapters of books about witchcraft.

01:10:01 Joanna

And work through the kind of practical, you know, prompts to better our practice. So that's what we do every month. We are currently working with one of the books by Lee Morgan, whom I have mentioned earlier at the beginning of the video and.

01:10:19 Joanna

Another project that I do is what you mentioned the toad pond. I love the name by the way. It's my favorite. The Toad Pond is a group project where we kind of pick a theme each month and people vote on things that they wanna learn together and practice together and then share experiences. So this month it's actually spirit fly.

01:10:24 Merrily

Yeah, yeah.

01:10:38 Joanna

But who knows what's going to happen next month? Folks are definitely going to be voting on something exciting. So these are the things that I actually do on a kind of monthly basis. The projects that are always ongoing for me.

01:10:51 Merrily

Yeah, yeah, you're busy. Busy, busy lady for sure. And. And another thing. I wanted to talk about.

01:10:57 Merrily

They just saw it the other day that you posted about was #occult tea.

01:11:03 Merrily

And I don't know if you want to talk just a little bit about it. I know you have like, of course you what you put together is so.

01:11:09 Merrily

Thought.

01:11:09 Merrily

Out and thorough. So definitely people need to check that out on your Instagram is where I found it, but can you tell?

01:11:17 Merrily

Us a little bit about it.

01:11:19 Joanna

Yeah, of course. Thank you. So this is a project that I actually came up with in collaboration with.

01:11:26 Joanna

Two people, so Ella Harrison and Leah Middleton, they are both on Instagram and YouTube as well. They are much more better known than than myself, but we just so happened that we kind of came together on this topic of touching on subjects that are kind of problematic.

01:11:46 Joanna

In our community, so speaking broadly, the occult community, but more kind of.

01:11:54 Joanna

Close to home I guess would be the wedge craft community, so talking about things like how social media and being online and consuming content online about witchcraft and they're called is actually impacting us as practitioners as human beings. Does it really help us grow as practitioners or does it?

01:12:17 Joanna

Make us feel less than others because I don't know somebody else's setup is more aesthetic than yours or whatever, and also kind of touching on subjects of abuse of grifters and people who kind of fake things to take advantage of.

01:12:29

Hmm.

01:12:32 Joanna

You. There's a lot of that in our community and I feel like it's important to especially make the kind of newer folks aware that this is something that's been ongoing for years, like people stealing somebody's identity to take advantage of it or lying about having experience in certain parts of witchcraft to.

01:12:53 Joanna

Monetize that. Like, for example, pretend that they're doing rituals for people. You know, that just happens that there's so much and that by putting out this tag out.

01:13:04 Joanna

Where I learned so much more, actually, about like the dark side of things that honestly, I've been kind of trying to process it the past few days because this just came.

01:13:12

Oh wow.

01:13:13 Joanna

Out.

01:13:15 Joanna

Oh my God, it's over. Overwhelming. Honestly. But the idea behind the tag is that I'm not just there, like, talking to people and telling them everything they need to know about.

01:13:18 Merrily

Yeah.

01:13:25 Joanna

All those kind of darker aspects of the online witchcraft world, umm. But everybody, every single person in the community is invited to share their experience.

01:13:36 Joanna

Based on a number of questions and prompts to kind of touch on the things that hurt them that make them not feel seen in community, maybe ways that they were taken advantage of, etcetera. So that we can actually hear from each other and have each other's backs. You know, when it comes to that, so.

01:13:53 Joanna

Yeah, it's a project.

01:13:55 Joanna

Tell you? Yeah, it's intense. It's really intense. And it's also.

01:13:57 Merrily

It sounds like it.

01:14:02 Joanna

Been getting some backlash honestly, cause it seems like some people don't want others to know this stuff, so it just shows how you know. Important it is to make people aware and open and not afraid to be sharing the idea for this tag even came up from the fact that I was talking with my community.

01:14:08 Merrily

Feelings.

01:14:23 Joanna

About these things and many people are just scared of, you know, exposing grifters of telling who took advantage of them because they are scared that they are going to get, you know, backlash for it. So if we bond as a community and talk about it in huge numbers, maybe it's going to be easier for people to come out and not be scared.

01:14:44 Joanna

You know, so that's the whole idea. If anybody listening to this, if you would like to participate, I would love that like, make a video, make a podcast episode, write A blog post, whatever. Just use the hashtag called tea. I know. Very kind of cheeky, but I.

01:15:00 Merrily

It's cute, yeah.

01:15:00

Love it.

01:15:01 Joanna

Yeah. So I would really love to just hear from people, honestly, so we can have each other's backs and not feel like everything that's happening in this community is just people backstabbing each other and trying to kind of grow off of somebody's failure cuz that's that's not the vibe we are going for.

01:15:16 Merrily

Yeah.

01:15:18 Merrily

Right. Yeah, what a great project and so.

01:15:22 Merrily

Again, like really.

01:15:23 Merrily

Thoughtful and great contribution to the community, you know, to, like, open up these spaces and you're right. Like there's, you know, the main thing is, you know, when I saw it was thinking about, oh, you know, how people, especially on Instagram, they put up these beautiful, like altars and stuff like that. And it's like, well, the reality is, like, you know, my.

01:15:40 Merrily

Altar might have like, yeah.

01:15:41 Joanna

It's not.

01:15:42 Joanna

That.

01:15:43 Merrily

Like sometimes, yeah, when I clean it up, it's gonna look nicer. But when I'm using it every day, it's just, you know, matches everywhere, you know.

01:15:50 Joanna

Like all sorts of the same same, my alter doesn't look like those on the you know, the wheels and all of that. It's all curated and it's staged to look like that cuz sadly.

01:15:57 Merrily

Yes.

01:16:00 Joanna

And this I feel like is the sad reality of connecting with people online over something like witchcraft is that we kind of become the slaves of the algorithm. We become the product so many people, if they feel like they, you know, many people just want to support themselves. Like get some.

01:16:12

Hmm.

01:16:21 Joanna

A few extra bucks every month to get something nice or whatever. Yeah. So many people rely on these platforms for support.

01:16:30 Joanna

And if those platforms force them to only create fake content that looks good and has no substance, because that's the only thing that gets engagement, they then are kind of forced to, you know, dump it all down, make it all just about aesthetics and all of that. And there's nothing wrong with pretty things.

01:16:49 Joanna

I mean, I love pretty things, but that's not witchcraft alone. Like witchcraft is behind all that, and it's great to share that. But when a platform forces you to dumb it down so that you can support yourself.

01:16:51 Merrily

Yeah.

01:17:03 Joanna

That's just so unethical, but also something that we can do nothing about if we want to support ourselves. So it's a it's a hard topic, but I feel like giving people the opportunity to just be open about the struggles that come with all this. Createspace, for, you know, support for healing.

01:17:08

Yeah.

01:17:23 Joanna

For understanding each other and also for the kind of newer practitioners in the community to know the reality of it, because many young people like they come to this, they see people who are much older and are already like authorities because they have so many.

01:17:40 Joanna

You know followers, for example, that they might not know that things don't always look this way and haven't been looking this way like 10 years ago, for example, where when TikTok wasn't that thing, right. So giving people perspective and hold space for people, I feel it's really important.

01:17:53 Merrily

Yeah.

01:17:59 Merrily

Yeah, I'm so glad that. Yeah, it's wonderful. So I'm glad you, you and your your cohorts are putting that together. And yeah, I'm very looking forward to looking through all the the hashtags because I haven't had a chance yet. But I'm like now.

01:18:11 Merrily

I'm gonna nerd out and read through.

01:18:12 Joanna

There, there's a lot already at.

01:18:13 Merrily

It so that's great. OK.

01:18:15

Yeah.

01:18:16 Merrily

So divided, so where can folks find out more about you and all the really cool stuff that you're up to?

01:18:24 Joanna

So I'm around on the Internet on various platforms, especially Instagram, YouTube kind of semi regularly and Patreon where I post the most regularly.

01:18:36 Joanna

All of those are available under the name Polish folk, which so it's.

01:18:41 Joanna

I feel fairly easy to to Google to find and yeah I what I do is mostly talk about Polish folk magic, Polish folklore and kind of traditions that have been cultivated by our peoples, but also just broadly, you know, like traditional witchcraft skills and cultivating community so that we can.

01:19:02 Joanna

Do these things together and motivate each other to, you know, have a nice practice. So yeah, that's mostly what I do. And again, Polish folk which everywhere.

01:19:13 Merrily

Very cool. Yeah, it is very easy to find you. You did great branding on like, like being able to find you. It's.

01:19:18 Merrily

Awesome.

01:19:19 Joanna

Honestly, I know nothing about branding. It's all just random.

01:19:23 Merrily

I know, but it's like it's perfect. So yeah, you're very good googleable, which is great. So what last thing is, like, what are some words of wisdom that you would like to leave us with today?

01:19:36 Joanna

Words of wisdom, I think.

01:19:39 Joanna

For the kind of climate, I guess that I'm in and around recently, I would like for folks to remember how community is so important, how connection is so important, how none of us are an island and doesn't matter what you do in life. But that includes witchcraft and any kind of spiritual practices.

01:20:01 Joanna

You can't really do any of it alone. You need to have a community, and that's be either a community of humans around you, but also the community of spirits around you. So just remembering and for folks who feel alone, who feel like they have nobody, you are never alone. There are.

01:20:21 Joanna

Always spirits around you, your ancestors, the non ******* ones that we talk.

01:20:26 Joanna

About those, they always have your back and they are always there to see you succeed and see you be doing well in life. So the words of wisdom, I guess for me that are important at this time is to always remember that connection and the Community are at the core of what we do.

01:20:47 Joanna

Witches, as practitioners of any spiritual discipline, really.

01:20:53 Merrily

Oh, beautifully said. And always good to think about and and. And keep in mind as well. So thank you so much, Joanna. It's been a pleasure.

01:21:02 Joanna

Thank you. I'm so glad I was invited and could share a bit about the things that I'm into and nerd out together about some of the things. Yeah, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

01:21:05

Yeah.

01:21:14 Merrily

Yeah. Thank you.

01:21:16 Merrily

It was such a treat having the most awesome Joanna, the Polish folk witch on the show today do check out the occult hashtag on YouTube and Instagram and absolutely take a look at the Polish folk witch Patreon and all the wonderful offerings that Joanna has for her members there. Do you remember to like, follow and subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform?

01:21:35 Merrily

Really helps us, Brett. Thank you for listening and being an important part of the casual.

01:21:39 Merrily

Temple.

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EPISODE 25 - JOANNA

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