203: Halloweentown (Myth Movie Night)
/Only on Spirits do we get really into the logistics and philosophy of a Disney Channel Original Movie. We’re talking Halloweentown, and stress that there’s no such thing as witch DNA, and magic should go back to being more democratic.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of elitism, biological essentialism, religious persecution, societal inequity, and witch trials.
When Did Magic Become Elitist?
Are You Descended from Witches?
Housekeeping
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Transcript
Amanda: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I’m Amanda.
Julia: And I'm Julia.
Amanda: And, guys, what else would this be? It's Halloweentown for Myth Movie Night.
Julia: I'm so excited. It's really nice to kind of revisit some of the classic movies of our childhood, Amanda. Like, I was always a Hocus Pocus girl myself, but I know that I have a strong love for Halloweentown.
Amanda: Yeah, I definitely do as well. And, listen, in this dumpster fire of a world, as we all prepare to make our plans, if you're eligible voters in the US, you are to follow up with all your people and friends and family who are and urge them to vote for Joe Biden. Sometimes, you just need to put on a movie that'll make you happy. And, sometimes, that movie is Halloweentown.
Julia: And you know what? Usually during this month, it is Halloweentown.
Amanda: Absolutely. And you know who else makes me happy?
Julia: Is it our new patrons?
Amanda: Our new patrons, the folks who gave their hard earned dollars to us to help us keep making this podcast: ZanyDelaney, great name, Louise, Megan Clayton, Murder Penguin. Wow.
Julia: Also, a great name.
Amanda: And Patricia. Really coming through everybody.
Julia: Really, really good. Such a wide variety of names for patrons.
Amanda: We also would love to take this time, as we do every episode, to thank our supporting producer level patrons; Philip, Uhleeseeuh, Allison, Debra, Hannah, Jen, Jessica, Keegan, Kneazlekins, Landon, Liz, Meaghan, Megan Linger, Megan Moon, Molly, Neal, Niki, Phil Fresh, Polly, Riley, Sarah, and Skyla as well as our legend level patrons; Audra, Chelsea, Drew, Eden, Frances, Jack Marie, Lada, Livie, Mark, Morgan, Necrofancy, Renegade, and Bea Me Up Scotty.
Julia: We would take you all to an ice cream shop run by a Yeti. You'll understand why later.
Amanda: Oh, 100 percent.
Julia: Amanda, what have you been listening too, reading, watching lately? I know you just took a little vacation. Did you find anything fun to entertain yourself?
Amanda: I did. And thank you for, for letting me take a true week off, Julia.
Julia: Of course.
Amanda: And I found a fantastic podcast recommended by friend of the show, Julia Turshen, a previous guests, called The Walk-In by Chef Elle Simone Scott in partnership with America's Test Kitchen.
Julia: Ooh.
Amanda: It is a podcast that explores the unheard stories of the food world's difference makers. So, it's not, you know, the celebrity chefs that, you know, you hear it mentioned in every single, like, article about food. It's about like what actually happens between the first day of work for a person and the, like, “overnight success.” A lot happens and it's something that rarely is discussed really beyond a small circle of trusted friends. So, Chef Simone Scott is a fantastic host and the previous guests – like just in the last couple weeks. Like, the McBride sisters and Karen Washington were both absolutely fantastic guests. So, I highly recommend. They just wrapped up their first season. And you should subscribe to The Walk-In now.
Julia: That sounds incredible. I'm getting really into cooking podcast lately. So, I'm gonna have to add this to my list.
Amanda: It's really, really great.
Julia: Amanda, you know what else is really great?
Amanda: Is it?
Julia: Well, it hasn't happened yet, but our live show.
Amanda: Is it gonna be our live show?
Julia: It is.
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: It’s gonna be our live show. It is happening. If you're listening to this the day the episode comes out, it’s happening tonight. But, if you're listening afterwards, you can still buy a ticket and get a digital download and watch the video of the live show whenever you want.
Amanda: You absolutely can. We were planning on doing a lot of touring this year. And it was a huge bummer not to be able to see everybody in person, but we are getting really into these digital live shows, both because it's a way for you to come see us no matter where you live in the world or what your ability to like get out or get childcare or get transportation is. And, also, we just get to hang out with you. And we love that. And we love doing live shows. So, we are doing this today, the 28th, 8:00 PM Eastern. But, like Julia said, you can also buy a ticket, just $12, and get a digital download of the show after it happens. So, go to spiritspodcast.com/live. That will take you to the page where you can get a ticket to watch us live or to watch the replay afterward.
Julia: It's going to be a lot of fun. I just put the finishing touches on creep or cool. And, y'all, you're not ready. You’re not ready for this.
Amanda: Oh, my goodness. I can't wait. You may also want to just keep an eye out on Halloween as you're doing your – you know, your many Halloween things. Safely social distance to making sure that, you know, you have your voting plan all in place, and just maybe go to multitude.productions/merch. Maybe you just check out the merch store. Maybe you just go to spiritspodcast.com/merch. It'll take you to the same place. And I don't know. Maybe there'll be something fun there. I don't know. I don't know.
Julia: Who's to say?
Amanda: Who's to say? So, listen everybody, it’s rough out there and we love you. And we hope to bring you, you know, 45 or some minutes of, of smiles and laughs and Halloween nostalgia with Episode 204. We stopped numbering them by the way because there's too many and we're past 200. It's okay. Spirits Podcast: Halloweentown for Myth Movie Night.
Intro Music
Julia: Amanda, another movie, another spooky – not so spooky movie actually this time. Usually, we go for spookier movies, but this is lighthearted, and nice, and nostalgic.
Amanda: Happy Halloween.
Julia: Happy Halloween. It's time for Disney Channel Original Movie.
Amanda: No Disney Channel Original Movie hits harder for me nostalgia wise and I think repeat enjoyment wise than Halloweentown.
Julia: Really? Okay. Yeah, I think I was more of a Hocus Pocus kind of gal myself, but I do feel like Halloweentown is up there in terms of re-watchability for a Disney Channel Original Movie. I bet Hocus Pocus --
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: -- isn't a Disney Channel Original Movie. And people are going to pin me on that, but I stand by it. It's got a similar vibe.
Amanda: Similar vibe, definitely, in terms of like Halloween movies that are extensively for kids but also good to watch.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: And I hadn’t seen Hocus Pocus until we watched it for Spirits.
Julia: Aah.
Amanda: I also think that the sequels to Halloweentown are not trash all the way down. There is some stuff in there, you know. And I appreciate a series.
Julia: I haven't rewatched the sequels much. I do remember really liking Halloweentown High or Halloween High. I can't remember which, but --
Amanda: Yeah, Halloweentown High.
Julia: -- I really liked the like, “We're all adults kind of now and, you know, we have big teen problems.” And not just, “I'm 13 and my Grandma wants to teach me magic, but my mom won't let me.”
Amanda: I think it's a very, like, fan impulse. And I definitely identify as a fan particularly, like, culturally coming up in fandom on the internet to just – to, like, want more of the thing. And, having a lot of a media property, like, does a lot to make up for quality.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: You know, like, if there's something where there's lots and lots of it to watch and analyze, I feel like I can put up with a little bit, you know, quality up and down because of the volume versus like a standalone movie has to be, like, so good in order to really, you know, be resonant for me.
Julia: I think that's true. And I also think of the movie franchises that have so many sequels that are very Halloween horror based like Friday the 13th, the Nightmare on Elm Street. You pick, like, the gems out of those because the – it's a quantity over quality thing. But there are little tiny gems stuck in there. And I think that kind of makes a franchise good, you know. They can't all be winners. This is what it comes down to at the end of the day.
Amanda: It does. That was my experience of watching, like, Buffy and The X-Files, you know, where there's some – there's some real – there's some slugs to get through in there. Or you can kind of bounce around the highlights. Or you can put up with the slugs because they maybe contribute character development or world building that really pay off in other ways. But that's why – I don't know. Hating is boring. Haters are boring. You know, like, find things to like in the stuff that's around you.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: That's how I feel.
Julia: And like the things you like. No one's stopping you. It's okay.
Amanda: Like the things you like.
Julia: As long as they're not actively hurting other people. So, let's talk about this movie, Amanda. I believe it is my turn for the summary.
Amanda: Oh, I have your timer all pulled up. Don’t worry.
Julia: Oh, boy. All right. Here we go. Here we go. I got three paragraphs written for this. So, we'll see if I can get through them in two minutes.
Amanda: All right. Everybody, if you want to avoid spoilers, hop forward about three minutes. All right. Julia, 3, 2, 1, go.
Julia: So, we start the movie on Halloween and are introduced to Marnie, Dylan, Sophie, and their mom, Gwen. Gwen refuses to let the kids celebrate Halloween and what we assume is kind of like a weird, “This is a pagan holiday,” kind of vibe.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: But, with the arrival of Grandma Aggie, played by the incredible Debbie Reynolds, it becomes clear that Aggie, Gwen, and, therefore, Marnie are witches. And he wants to train Marnie now that she's 13 because she needs to learn how to use her powers or she'll lose them forever. But Gwen is against this because she wants to raise her kids as mortals. Aggie says she needs help in her home, the aptly named Halloweentown. It has bad shit happening, but Gwen refuses to help. So, Aggie leaves before midnight and Marnie and Dylan sneak aboard the, like, short bus that she's taking to Halloweentown, full of monsters. But they lose their grandma once they arrive because shit is just wild there. Sophie also appears, having followed her siblings. And they run into the Mayor Kalabar, who gets them a skeleton cabbie to bring them to their grandma's house. And grandma's just, like, super happy to see them and promises to start training Marnie. But, first, she's got to take care of the shit that's happening in town. So, she's going to activate Merlin's talisman with a spell and a potion that will help defeat the evil that she's aware of. So, they head into town to get the ingredients for the potion, where Marnie talks to the hot goblin, Luke, which, spoiler alert, the actress that played Marnie and the actor who played Luke dated for a while. Gwen shows up looking for her kids, tries to take him home, but she can't get a bus. So, she goes to the mayor, not knowing it's Kalabar who is the mayor and also her ex. So, Kalabar leaves to, like, take care of some stuff. And the gang sees Aggie leaving with hot goblin, Luke, and assumed that she's in trouble. So, they follow her to an old movie theater. Aggie is facing the hooded demon that she saw, like, earlier on. And, when she refuses to give him the talisman, the demon freezes both Gwen and Aggie. And the kids escape and they go find the ingredients to a potion, which is like a hair of werewolf, the sweat of a ghost, and the vampire’s fang. And they go to place the talisman in the big ol’ Jack-o’-lantern that they saw when they got into town in the first place. So, they go do that. The demon shows up. Reveals that it's Kalabar who --
Amanda: Time.
Julia: Oh, dammit.
Amanda: Hurry up. Hurry up.
Julia: Okay. It's – it’s Kalabar. The demon is Kalabar. He's pissed that Gwen married another dude. It was a terrible motivation.
Amanda: So bad.
Julia: He wants to convince the Halloweentown residents that they should – they should take over the mortal world. Marnie manages to complete the spell, which unfreezes all the other people. And they use their magic to defeat Kalabar. Everything ends happy. The family goes home to the mortal world. Gwen and Aggie agree to start training Marnie as a witch.
Amanda: And all is well forever and there are no sequels.
Julia: No, not at all. Literally, the next one is called Kalabar’s Revenge. So, if you hadn't seen this film --
Amanda: Yeah, it happens. I – there's lots to talk about in the plot. Can we just talk about these actors for a second as well?
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: A, it’s Debbie Reynolds. That’s amazing.
Julia: Debbie Reynolds.
Amanda: She's – she's playing such a, like, err grandma, you know. It’s a grandma who, like, wants what's best for you, gives you candy, like, does cool shit, and is, like, an adventurer. And I think that's amazing.
Julia: Also, Debbie Reynolds just is, like, the beginning of a line of fabulous actresses, which I really appreciate.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Debbie Reynolds and then you have Carrie Fisher. And, now, you have Billie Lourd, who is really coming into her own right now, and just, like, a lot of teen and young adult drama stuff and I absolutely adore them.
Amanda: Yeah, the, the, you know, kind of protagonist, Kimberly J. Brown, is also a Disney Channel Original Movie. She was like quite a cast member, you know.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: She was in Quince, a TV movie about a girl who – whose mom has quintuplets after her. And, as a kid with twin siblings who are younger than me, I was like, “Wow. That will be worse.”
Julia: That would be.
Amanda: Which I think is very fun. And then Judith Hoag or Hoag. I don't know how to say her last name. But the mom is, is like a working actor. She has the longest IMDb I've ever seen.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: Any procedural that you've ever watched; Grey's Anatomy, Castle, CSIS, various – you know, Bones. Like, shows that you might re-watch; NYPD Blues, 7th Heaven, when you're sick, she has been on. And I respect it so fucking hard.
Julia: Oh, absolutely. I think the funny part too is I was looking up the actor who played Luke and he played Hey Arnold! for two seasons.
Amanda: Oh, my god. I didn't know that.
Julia: Yeah, they replaced the first season guy because his voice changed. And then this guy got it for two seasons.
Amanda: Oh, no.
Julia: And then his voice changed. So, they had to change it again. It's a wild ride to be a young adult voice actor.
Amanda: He was on Gilmore Girls too.
Julia: Was he? Huh. Good for him.
Amanda: Yeah, Young Christopher. So, it sounds like just fleeting.
Julia: Young Christopher.
Amanda: Um, yeah. I just thought it was – it’s really fun.
Julia: Yeah. Talking specifically about the movie as well, it is that kind of Disney Channel Original Movie nostalgia that I feel like a lot of us have. But I definitely didn't remember how diverse the monster and mythological creatures are in this film. Like, one of Marnie’s lines is asking if Halloweentown has “banshees and dybbuks” there too, which I think is – you don’t hear about a dybbuk that much, you know.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: And one of my personal favorite touches to the film is when the kids are out shopping with Aggie and they go to the ice cream store that’s run by a Yeti. Like, that's extremely cute. I love the kind of personalized touches to like, “Oh, of course, the Yeti who's used to the cold wouldn't mind the freezers and stuff of the ice cream store.” That's adorable.
Amanda: It's such good world building. And I think particularly the framing device of, you know, a kid realizing that there is more and she is special, you know. And, like, there is a whole different world out there, whether you're talking about that in Narnia or like Diane Duane, So, You Want to Be a Wizard, which was huge for me as a kid, Pendragon, which is like a bizarre series that I just read a lot of when I was young. It is setting itself up for, like, very impressive world building because you literally have a moment of like – of like falling into a whole new world. I think the first few minutes of Marnie's being in Halloweentown is just so, like, magical. It's beautiful. It really is.
Julia: Yeah, it's – and they put a lot of effort into it, especially the physical special effects and the costuming and the makeup design. It’s all really, really good, like, for, for that time period. And I imagine what the budget was.
Amanda: Yeah, I don't think it's distracting. You know, sometimes, you watch a B movie or a TV movie and you're like, you know, that's a mask. But these are not like Guillermo del Toro situations.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: But they're not distracting. And I think that is a, a good sort of, like, baseline for a movie of this kind a tier.
Julia: For Halloween season, for the 31 days of Halloween, Jake and I watched something scary every single day or, at least, Halloween inspired. And, one of the evenings, we watched the Goosebumps episodes, The Haunted Mask and The Haunted Mask Part 2.
Amanda: Ooh.
Julia: And let me tell you. Fairly good makeup, much better in the second one, because you can tell they're like, “Well, a lot hinges on this mask being really good. So, we need it to be better.”
Amanda: It’s kind of in the title.
Julia: We need it to be better in the second one if we're gonna do this again. So, I, I really appreciate you bringing up the world building though, because one of the things that struck me while watching the film and then made me think about, like, magic systems in a bunch of other fantasy media is that the witches in this film are hereditary witches. Generally, most fantasy media that I can think of, like, at the moment, has an aspect of hereditary witchcraft. That you're, like, born with magic blood or have a magic ancestor. And, because you have that “something special about you,” you can train to become a full-fledged magic user. And this becomes a question that started tickling something in my brain because I feel as though, in classic folktales, magic was a thing that like anyone can learn.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: You didn't have to be special or be born into a specific bloodline to be magic. It was – it was a skill that you could learn like embroidery or physics, you know. It just required attaining the right knowledge. So, I went and I found an article from Gizmodo from, like, nearly a decade ago, which is titled --
Amanda: Oh, my god.
Julia: -- When Did Magic Become Elitist by David Liss.
Amanda: I am intrigued. When?
Julia: Okay. So, Liss points out that a lot of pop culture depictions of magic nowadays even make the distinction that magic users are portrayed as biologically different from ordinary people, which is true of this movie. Like, witches are distinct from mortals. They live entirely separate worlds. But Liss makes the point that, in the past before the pop culture of the day, he says that you could get magic one of two ways. And here's this, “Through learning the craft, either from another practitioner or from books; or through obtaining magic from a powerful being-think Faust or the classic, demonized witch, both of whom get their mojo from Satan. Anyone could learn magic as long as they had access to the knowledge or could make connection to the right supernatural beings.” So, to kind of put it in Dungeons and Dragons terms, because I do think that it does a good job of differentiating the different types of magic, magic users of the past were either wizards, who learned to their magic through scholarship, or warlocks, who made a deal for power. Modern magic in pop culture is almost entirely sorcerers. It's magic gained through magical bloodlines.
Amanda: That makes a lot of sense.
Julia: And I'm curious, Amanda, if you can think of many magic systems in current pop culture that don't have this. I mean, off the top of my head, I can't really think of ones where it's just like, “Yeah, I trained with this dude. There's nothing special about me. I just, like, met this guy. And he said he’ll teach me magic, you know.”
Amanda: Nothing comes to mind immediately. And, conspirators, we know there are so many examples of all things we're going to talk about. We definitely welcome you being like, “Hey, my favorite example of A, B, and C is this.” But we make a 45-minute podcast, and we cannot mention everything. So, please send emails and yell at us. Okay. Great. I am now thinking about So, You Want to Be a Wizard, that, that series that I mentioned a few minutes ago --
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: -- because the whole conceit is, like, a girl walks into a library, picks up a book, and it says, “So, You Want to Be a Wizard,” and she’s just like, “I guess.” And then, through reading only – you know, just through study, you gain power.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: And I thought that, that was so compelling. A, because I was a girl in a library, like, walking into pick up a book. And it was just like a wonderful synchronicity, but also because it doesn't require you to be anybody special. And, now, as you lay it out like that, and the author lays it out like that, I'm finding a lot more problematic about, you know, the construction of magic as a thing that, like, certain bloodlines have. Like, oh my god, we hardly even need to say it, because it is so obvious. I really love the sort of, you know, practical magic. The idea that you can learn, that it's a transmutation of energy, and that it is more kind of, like, you know, either alchemical, or like a muscle, you know, that you can, like, exercise to, to gain more power than you had before.
Julia: Yeah, exactly. I thought it was really interesting. I – another example that I thought of, once I actually really like dug in and thought about it – it wasn't like a surface level. Like, “Oh, here's a good example.” But one that I recently read and also talked about on Exolore was The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall. And I recommend it on the show earlier as well. But that is an instance of magic being taught and the specific person does not have to be special. They just have to learn from someone who already has mastery over the craft. So, I know that there are examples. It's just they're not the huge in media examples that you immediately think of when someone says magic fantasy book.
Amanda: Yeah. You're like, ah, someone discovers their magical and does stuff.
Julia: Mhmm. It's like, “Oh, they were magical this whole time. And then they didn't realize. You know, now because they're special, they get to go to a school and learn how to be more magic.”
Amanda: And I mean it's not that different as it’s from a fairy tale, where it's like, you know, kid grows up in hard circumstances and then realize that they are prince or a princess. It's like there was something special about you all along, but it's something inherited and not something you achieve. And, also, that it's good, apparently, to be part of that exclusionary, you know, elite. That it's – it's almost always presented as a good thing. You just like ascend to a better world with better, like, physical resources and/or, like, political, cultural, magical capital versus like, “Oh, hey, if there's something – like also my question in, you know, Harry Potter, which, again, we all think about differently now than we used to. But why aren't you using magic to solve disease? Like, that is – why, why isn't anybody doing that throughout the entire book series? But, instead, it's sort of, like, in this bubble. Like, that is the place where you want to be. And everybody else that’s left behind is – like suffers.
Julia: Yeah. And this makes a good point too, like, talking about like, “Oh, I thought I was one thing and then I discovered I wasn't.” It – it – that very much plays into a fantasy that I think that a lot of, like, younger kids and young adults experience, where it's like --
Amanda: Oh, totally.
Julia: -- oh, what if my parents weren't my parents? Or what if I was adopted and my real family was royalty or something else? So, the magic plays into that kind of idea of like, “Oh, well, I'm elite because I have powers that other people don't.” And Liss makes some really good points about that. So, I'm going to – I'm going to continue extrapolating off of his article. So --
Amanda: Yeah. We'll have a link to this in the description so you can read it yourself. Julia: Yes, I'll link all three articles that I'm going to reference in this episode.
Amanda: Julia, I love a footnoted episode.
Julia: Liss makes the point that everyday ordinary people prove themselves to be magic users in one way or another in our lives. So, like saying a little prayer or one could argue a spell when you lose something in the hopes that it will reappear. What we talked about in our 200th episode where you can accidentally put the evil eye on something by coveting it and then reverse it by simply touching the item. That's a form of everyday magic. It's a force of will, believing that it will happen and then it happens. And I think the movie kind of plays with that slightly if we ignore the fact that the Cromwells are able to do what they can because they are Cromwells. And that makes them witches. So, for instance, when facing the locked gate at their grandma's house, Sophie's able to turn the lack into a frog without anyone even noticing because she just imagined it really hard. She willed it into existence. And this is why magic was and, to a lesser extent, still is persecuted because, as Liss points out in his article, it is inherently democratic. The old form of magic where anyone can learn magic is an inherently democratic system. So, it gives power to those not in power. And we transport quite literally the powerful waging war against the powerless because they dared attempt to gain power. So, therefore, what we once considered witchcraft like the use of folk healing and general practices that we now considered “superstitious” become downplayed in order to avoid persecution. So, there was no open practicing, no open worship because that made those practicing magic targets. And, in a way, the practice of magic became ordinary, which Liss argues is why pop culture changed the magic system from an open system to a closed system. You were born into magic. It was an elite system that you were lucky to be a part of. It's no longer democratic.
Amanda: I don't have much to add because this is blowing my mind. And I think it is really, really well put.
Julia: Yeah. No, he absolutely does a great job with it. And I – you know, I never really thought of a magic as a way of seizing power, but he brings up a great example about how, like, the Romans would persecute magic users as long as they were practicing something that wasn't just like folk healing because they were worried that enough power – enough people, you know, cursing a political figure or an emperor would, you know, bring down that emperor. And, therefore, it's the masses using what little power they have, in order to seize more power.
Amanda: It's sort of a, a populist dream, right? That the structures – power structures that make the powerful powerful, which you can define in, like, many different terms, whether, you know, economic, religious, all this kind of stuff. That you can overcome that or beat that even with some sense of, like, collective will. And that, you know, you can will yourself out of a situation. You can will a situation different. That is what I always kind of consider the, like, intention-based magic versus kind of like alchemical magic. That, to me, is such a – like, it is a way of making what we wish would happen happen. And that is so powerful, especially – you know, like, I get why a lot of the time the sort of, like, “I discover I'm special,” magical narratives start with, like, a person in hard circumstances because, you know, some part of you wants to believe that, like, “Surely, I don't deserve this.” And I think taking it the next step to, “Surely, no one deserves this,” you know. And, like, confronting that in your text instead of an individual like, “Oh, good, I, I knew I didn't deserve to be, you know, in whatever circumstance they were in.” That is the challenge. And that is what I hope, you know, and know that more people do and lots of contemporary writers are doing in speculative fiction and Sci-fi and, like, all kinds of places. But, yeah, I – ah, so many thoughts.
Julia: I'm very curious now because I'm thinking about the idea of – I hate talking about the bootstrap narrative because it's – it's just terrible. It's a terrible idea. It's a terrible concept. It's supposed to be, you know, an impossible thing to do, but people take it very seriously now that you can't – you literally can't pull yourself up by your bootstraps. That's where the phrase comes from. But the idea of the, the democratic system of learning magic still requires you to have a certain amount of privilege. You have to find someone to educate you. Or you have to find a way of contacting a power stronger than you are in order to gain more power.
Amanda: Yeah, knowledge is not democratic, you know, by definition.
Julia: Yes. But the idea that, if you have the resources to find those things, that you are able to move up in life. It’s interesting to me. I don't think it's necessarily fair or good or, like, you know, inherently, philosophically good. But I think it is interesting because it is a little bit different from the idea of being born into privilege versus the “magical pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.”
Amanda: Even that latter scenario involves other structural ingredients, you know. Like, the ingredient is not just a tutor or not just a text. It's, you know, time, literacy, resources, whether that's, you know, incomes so that you don't do other things or buying materials. And I think that's kind of the unspoken reality of it all. It’s, even if it's like, theoretically, anybody could be the chosen one, you know, or could be the, the pupil or the protagonist. Not everyone has the – sometimes, it’s just like luck to run into the right person or other, like, physical circumstances to allow them to kind of claim and to grow this power.
Julia: Yeah, absolutely. I think this is a good time for us to grab a refill and I can talk about kind of the practical real world scenarios of what hereditary witchcraft looks like.
Amanda: Let's do it.
Midroll Music
Julia: Amanda, like, on the day of my birthday, I received a package in the mail that I'd forgot was coming. But it was my exclusively picked just-for-me clothing from Stitch Fix. Amanda: Oh, my god. It's like a gift where they actually know the size, budget, and style you're looking for. And they don't just buy you another pair of leggings when I have enough leggings.
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Amanda: Don't need a printer. We're millennials. We don't own printers.
Julia: I do own a printer, but it's because I print a lot of things.
Amanda: Me too. Me too. I have a business. Yeah.
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Amanda: Get started today at C-A-L-M.C-O-M/spirits or, in Long Island, that's calm.com/spirits. And, finally, we are sponsored by Dirt Cheap, which is a new podcast from Neon Hum Media that digs deep into the dollar bins of used bookstores and storage units in search of pulp and questionable grammar. It is they say a poolside podcast you've been waiting for. Not for us here in fall in, in the northeast, but maybe it's an autumnal drive podcast you've been waiting for.
Julia: Hmm.
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Julia: Huh.
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Julia: Classic.
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Julia: So, Amanda, you actually brought the cocktail this time. What did you bring for us?
Amanda: I did. I think, when we are treated to a weekend Halloween, particularly when this year where most of us will not be going out and we'll be, you know, safely inside and socializing virtually, I think it's great to just kind of have, like, a drink all day situation.
Julia: Hmm.
Amanda: Drink a little bit for a long time. But do it reasonably, people. We’re all adults here. But I really like having a – you know, a mimosa-type situation. But, in this case, it’s something that Eric Silver and I make on Thanksgiving very often to have cold brew that you spice a bit. You can make – you know, you could do like cinnamon sticks, or orange peel, star anise. Like, something – cardamom even that is a nice kind of aromatic steep it overnight in your cold brew. And then, the next morning, you can serve it with a little bit of creamer and bourbon. It’s how we usually like to take it.
Julia: Mhmm. I like that. That sounds really good and fights off the usual brunch cocktail problem where it's, “I want to go sleep at noon now that I've drank these cocktails.”
Amanda: Yeah. And you can also do – if you're not super into bourbon, you can do a stout. And, so, kind of like milk stout, chocolate stout, peanut butter stout even. It’s really good. And, for people who don't necessarily love beer, stouts are often a really good way to start because it has, like, a flavor that you can know. And it's not sort of, like, inherently like fizzy or hoppy or like bitter that you might think if you've had, like, one sip of beer and be like, “Nah, I don’t know.” Stouts are good way to go.
Julia: You know what also might be a good alternative to bourbon? Like a nice spiced rum. Like a little bit of a spiced rum.
Amanda: Definitely.
Julia: Yeah, that would be good.
Amanda: I think that would be really good.
Julia: Because, like, a good spiced rum kind of tastes like cinnamon cookies in my mind. So --
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: -- if you add that to some cold brew, that's probably delicious.
Amanda: I think you really can't go wrong adding stuff to cold brew.
Julia: That’s fair. That’s fair. [Inaudible 31:50]. So, I want to talk about kind of what hereditary magic and hereditary witchcraft kind of look like in current, like, Pagan and Wiccan communities. So, I, I was reading an article in Learn Religions About Hereditary Witchcraft – again, we'll link that in the show notes – which immediately points out that there's, like, no such thing as Witch DNA. So, Wiccan and Paganism, those are religious practices. And, just like you are born into certain religious practices because that is what your family worships, it doesn't mean that your, like – your blood says, “Oh, I'm Catholic,” you know.
Amanda: Right.
Julia: So, oftentimes, the claim of being a hereditary witch in these communities comes from the idea that they can trace an ancestral link to someone who practiced witchcraft or was accused of it during the witch trials. There even, like, several genealogical websites and documents that allow you to trace your lineage back to the Salem witch trials. So, for instance, I've mentioned on the show that Jake and I have been watching American Horror Story. And one of the key plot points in the series is that the witches from coven can trace their bloodlines back to Salem in one way or another, you know.
Amanda: Mhmm.
Julia: So, this is a surprisingly big focus for genealogists and Pagan practitioners alike. So, for example, a big news in 2016 was the fact that a 350-year-old manuscript titled, Names of Witches in Scotland 1658, was digitized.
Amanda: Tell me more.
Julia: So, so, this allowed people to trace their supposed witch relatives back several centuries. In Scotland, between 1563 with the Scottish Witchcraft Act of the same year and 1736 when the law was repealed, somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 people were publicly accused of witchcraft and, at least, 2,000 were killed.
Amanda: Man, there’s so much data, This feels like a so long ago event, you know, just because, culturally, we want to be really separate from it.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: But that’s staggering.
Julia: Yeah, there's this Smithsonian article that breaks down all the data. And it's really interesting because their argument to saying like, “Oh, well, the data shows that what we believed about the witch trials is actually a little bit different than what we believe.” So, it's – you can read it. It's – it's fascinating. A lot of it is talking about how, like, only 6 percent of the people who were accused of witchcraft were from, like, nobility or the upper class, but the majority of the people who were accused were from the middle class instead of more poor people.
Amanda: I really enjoyed Stacy Schiff, The Witches, which I've mentioned many times in the show before. But it's a really good account too of, like, on the ground, you know, in, in one year or 18 months, like, what actually happened here.
Julia: And I will note that these statistics are for the, like, 200-year period in Scotland and not the, like --
Amanda: Yes. And this was for Salem --
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: -- specifically, The Witches.
Julia: So, with the announcement of the manuscript being digitized, Christopher Hilton, who is the senior archivist at the Wellcome Library notes, “This manuscript offers us a glimpse into a world that often went undocumented. How ordinary people outside the mainstream of science and medicine tried to bring order and control to the world around them. This might mean charms and spells or the use of healing herbs and other types of folk magic or both,” which is precisely the argument that Liss is making. But that raises the question, “Did we change the source of magic in pop culture as a way of deferring ourselves from a group that was being prosecuted? Or is it safe to be superstitious, to practice folk medicine as long as you know what you're doing?” Don't practice folk medicine if you haven't studied it. And, so, the everyday person is not liable to be under persecution. So, did we change what used to be magic to just “superstition?”
Amanda: Yeah. Man, there's so much wrapped up in this.
Julia: So, at the end of the day, the hereditary witch that we see in a lot of pop culture doesn't really exist. There is something to say about the passing down of traditions. I actually have a good quote on that by the author Sarah and Wallace, “The passing on of traditions through the family is a global concept and is not restricted by culture or continent. There are many family traditions existing in the United States that bear a striking resemblance to fairy doctors and cunning folk in Northern Europe, many of whom were hereditary themselves. Their traditions were strict and binding. They could only teach one student from the next generation of the family of the opposite sex. In many older witchcraft families in the UK, the traditions of transferring knowledge are thought to follow similar rules.” But, again, this is knowledge being passed down through the generations. It's not as if they're being born with magic, but rather we're born into a family of traditions and knowledge that they would eventually inherit.
Amanda: The biology doesn't matter as much as the context.
Julia: Yes. And I think that is a, a great point to make. So, the idea of hereditary witchcraft is inherently elitist. But, if we look at it in a modern context, if you look at it in the idea of the passing down of traditions rather than being you’re special because you have this certain bloodline. You get into the whole dynamic of being like, “Well, blood relatives don't really matter.” And you're learning something because your family has chose to learn it and to pass it down and keep the tradition alive for decades and centuries and millennia.
Amanda: Just like gender. I think hereditary magic is a social construct.
Julia: Mhmm. Absolutely. So, I guess I would love to open this up at the end here, Amanda, by asking you if you have a preference. When you're consuming fantasy pop culture, do you prefer the hereditary magic, the, “I was born special. And, now, I get to learn magic?” Or do you prefer the idea of, like, the transference of knowledge or the transference of power from something higher?
Amanda: I like the latter for all of the sort of contextual reasons that we've discussed in the episode today, but also because I really love logistics. I'm like an Oregon Trail person. I'm a Stardew Valley person of, of late. I spent all of October playing Stardew Valley. But I love this idea of, like, how – you know, with nuts and bolts, like, how do we get from here to there? How do we get from lay person to magic user? How do we get from no presence of magic in one's daily life to magic having a lot of influence in society or in a world? Which is why I love kind of world building discussions and exercises like on Exolore and in speculative fiction and in Sci-Fi. Like, novels and, and works of all kinds that deal with sort of how do we set up a society and, like, how practically do we get there. I don't like need the receipts on all the physics, you know, but I, I do need some sense of, like, how did the world that we are telling the story in come to be, whether that's as small as, you know, one person's journey from, you know, lay person to magic user or if it's, you know, this society is predicated on magic in so many ways and, like, this is how – like, this is where it comes from and this is how we got here.
Julia: I know you love the logistics of a magic system. That is one of the things I love about talking media with you.
Amanda: I do. I do. And I, I haven't mentioned it yet, but the Rivers of London Series by Ben Aaronovitch, which I have recommended at the beginning of the show before, but that is also a very logistically and, like, physics, you know, centered magic system that I find so satisfying.
Julia: Dresden Files is another similar example to that too, right? I haven't read them personally, but I know you've talked about it to me before.
Amanda: Yeah, lots of – you know, magic takes energy and, you know, what do you do when you run out? Like, there – there's, at some point, a bottom to your magical reserves.
Julia: Mhmm. I was thinking about how one of my favorite examples of – because you said, like, how does one go from a life where magic isn't there and then going into a life where magic is there. And one of my favorite examples is just the, like, right place at the right time person, where it's like --
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: -- oh, I accidentally stumbled on to this magical mystery. And, now, I'm being pulled into a world of hidden magic. I love that so much because it does play into the idea of, like, usually, when that person gets dragged into the world of magic, they learn that they can do magic. But it's usually like, oh, well, either they have an inherent skill for it. Like, you know, some people just, like, naturally have very good abs and, like, I wish I was one of those people. And, so, I, I like that it's either that or it's like, oh, well, now, you get to learn with this master while we also solve the problem of where the ferry Queen's crown is or something like that.
Amanda: Yeah. And it also gets to the fact that a lot of life is serendipitous. And there are tons of what ifs that we can all run scenario wise, like, of our own lives all the time. And a lot of the time, you know, what people may think later in life is a consequence of personal, you know, efforts is, in fact, a constellation of coincidence, luck, circumstance, privilege, all of that.
Julia: I'm just thinking of now a constellation of people accidentally bumping into each other and very cute meet cutes and stuff like that. And I want more magical meet cutes.
Amanda: Me too. I would read the heck out of that.
Julia: Someone write me a magical meet cute.
Amanda: Please, that's one thing I want. I want recommendations of magical make cutes please.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: Yes.
Julia: Send us an email titled, Magical Meet Cute, and we'll check it out.
Amanda: Hell yeah.
Julia: We will do, like, a roundup of magical meet cute books or something like that at some point.
Amanda: We will. And, to return to Halloweentown, I think this is really fun. I think – I think there is a lot of – you know, I appreciate it as a opportunity to talk about magical world building and systems of magic. And it's also a nice movie to have on in the background and something that, if you haven't experienced it yet or if you did in the 90s and you want to re-watch something fun and that doesn't – you know, that doesn't take a ton of emotional energy, I think this is a really good pick for you.
Julia: Yeah. I think that I want to re-watch it again so I can try to point out all of the different magical and mythological creatures that are featured in Halloweentown and, like, what their silly little jobs are and stuff. I think that would be a lot of fun to just kind of pick apart.
Amanda: That it'll be fun. I think you can – if you re-watch Halloweentown this week, send us a screenshot on Insta and tag us in your favorite mythological creature or mythology in joke in Halloweentown.
Julia: Yes, please. That would be adorable.
Amanda: Well, Julia, thank you. And I hope that you have a, an absolutely wonderful end of Halloween, which is your favorite month of the year.
Julia: Thank you.
Amanda: Halloween month.
Julia: Halloween month, I love it.
Amanda: You know, September, Halloween, November. That's how it works.
Julia: That is. Yeah. That's, uh – they specifically didn't name it after a, a Roman thing this time.
Amanda: Yay.
Julia: And remember, listeners, stay creepy.
Amanda: Stay cool.
Theme Music
Amanda: Thanks again to our sponsors. At stitchfix.com/spirits, you can get 25 percent off when you keep your whole box. At calm.com/spirits, you can get 40 percent off a Calm premium subscription. And the new podcast Dirt Cheap is available in any podcast player.
Outro Music
Amanda: Spirits was created by Amanda McLoughlin, Julia Schifini, and Eric Schneider with music by Kevin MacLeod and visual design by Allyson Wakeman.
Julia: Keep up with all things creepy and cool by following us @SpiritsPodcast on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. We also have all of our episode transcripts, guest appearances, and merch on our website as well as a forum to send us your urban legends at spiritspodcast.com.
Amanda: Join our member community on Patreon, patreon.com/spiritspodcast, for all kinds of behind-the-scenes stuff. Just $1 gets you access to audio extras with so much more available too; recipe cards, director’s commentaries, exclusive merch, and real physical gifts.
Julia: We are a founding member of Multitude, a collective of independent audio professionals. If you like Spirits, you will love the other shows that live on our website at multitude.productions.
Amanda: And, above all else, if you liked what you heard today, please share us with your friends. That is the very best way to help us keep on growing.
Julia: Thank you so much for listening. Till next time.
Transcriptionist: Rachelle Rose Bacharo
Editor: Krizia Casil