You see, something's going to happen. What's going to happen?
What?
Welcome back to the occult Rejects. Today we're joined by Enid Baxter Rice, author of Ancient Spells and Incantations Echoes of Magic through the Ages and Across Cultures. This is a book that reaches into one of the oldest magical technologies human beings ever used the spoken word, before printing presses, before modern psychology, before spell books became esthetic objects on a shelf. People whispered, sang, carved, paryed, cursed, healed, protected,
and commanded through language. The spell was not just a sentence. It was breath, rhythm, memory, intention, fear, hope, and authority shaped in words. What makes these subjects so powerful is that these old incantations were not always preserved in clean or comfortable places. Some survived in grimars, some survived in paptery letters, manuscripts, charms, pottery, fragments, medical texts, and ritual records.
Others survived because enemies of magic wrote them down inquisitors, church courts, colonizers, prosecutors, skeptics, and authorities trying to document what they wanted to control or destroy. So when we look at ancient spells, we are not only looking at magic. We are looking at survival. We are looking at voices that pass through persecution, translation, misunderstanding, and time. And that
is why this conversation matters. Modern people often reduced spells to fantasy or entertainment, but in the ancient and folk worlds, incantations were part of life. People used them for sickness, childbirth, love, protection, enemies, ghosts, animals, harvests, weather, grief, fear, justice, and revenge. They were not separate from daily existence. They belonged to the body, the home, the field, the sick
bed and threshold, the grave, and the sacred space. Today we're going to ask what these words meant, how they worked, why they lasted, and what they can still teach us about human relationship to language, power, spirit and reality. But before we introduce the guests, I also want to remind people about the website. If you're into reading, we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t shirts up on the site if you're interested fun fact,
the art is all based on the eyeball. Now let me introduce the guest eating back to the rice. Please let everybody know what is up with you and where they can find all of your amazing stuff, your books or anything you like to promote.
Thank you. First of all, that was such a beautiful introduction. It's kind of like marveling. I love the way you described that history and the amazing weird way that these things survive. This is the book. It's out, you can get it anywhere books are solds and I wrote and illustrated it.
Yeah, the illustrations are amazing in my opinion, Like that really quote my attention. When I was going through the book, I was like, Yo, he's a wild And I be completely honest, I had to check to see if they were like originals or if you droom because I was like, Yo, these things actually look like they're old. So your reconstruction of them like really made me think I was looking at the originals stuff.
Oh that's exciting. Well, some of them are drawings of the originals and manuscripts, and then some of them are me doing stuff like this where basically I paint with water and write words into the bottom, so the title of the book is actually in the bottom of the forest on the ghost farest. Some that cover and then some I just soaked watercolor paper and dropped ink on it and saw what emerged and then kind of pulled it out. Those are those weird characters all the way through it.
So that was fine, nice, nice. So I guess I kind of where I ask all, like, you know most people that come on the show for this type of stuff, what got you into this? Like how did you fund yourself? I guess into magic, the occult, whatever you call it, witchcraft.
So definitely in my family there's a tradition of herbalism, which, oh, you know, in the Middle Ages, there was no difference between magic, science art, you.
Know, cooking, it was all the same.
Yeah. Yeah, So it was all this these kind of predictive arts, these things that were mysterious, like how do you transform a vegetable into a great soup? How do you transform a vegetable into a poultice to heal someone?
Maybe you can use it to transform anything. So I was working on this book which came out in July, and it's a plant magic at home, and I was like, during the pandemic, I was trying to get my kids outside like crazy, and I was like, hey, guys, let's do this thing I used to do when I was a child, which was to go out and collect herbs and plants and berries and bark, and we would make dyes for my mother's weavings. And so I got my kids into sort of this process, which it's weirdly like
exciting and relaxing, and that's so I started. I was like, Okay, I want to write this book that tells all about how to do that, but also has the history of each plant and what it was used for in magic medicine folklore. And as I was researching that, I started finding these amazing incantations connected in these old texts with the plants and started writing them down. And then I realized, like,
this would be a really fun book. And you know, there's this access that I have to libraries because I'm a professor that you know, most people don't really get access to. And it's it's very like dark academia. Like I put in the request and I get an email and it's in a blocker, and I go to the locker and I open it up and there's the book. It smells awesome, and I take it home and I have one of these things where you actually have it right here, where you like set the book in the.
Use that library. Yeah, when I've gone there to get some of the old books. Yeah, they give you a thing and they give you like, yeah, they weighted. It's like a weighted sock.
Yeah wait yeah, yeah, yeah, it's totally. It's a it's one of those things you heat up like if you want to, you're done, you can you.
Know, to your Yeah, they want you to use that to hold the page down instead of your hands. Yeah yeah.
Yeah. So so I get these books and typically when they're written about by professors, it's scholarly, which is pouring. And I wanted to make a fun book that you could actually play with and use the incantations and kind of reveal some of this old stuff. So that was I had a ball with that.
That is awesome. That is really cool. That's also what you did with the herbs too. I have to get you back on maybe to talk about that. I'm pretty interested in herbs and that stuff.
Yeah, me too. I don't know where that history comes all the way down from. My mother was from a Celtic and Sephardic background, and I remember that, you know, when I was little, she was always planting marigolds next to the tomatoes, and I was like, why are you doing that? She said, to protect them? And I thought, oh, maybe it's like the smell you know of marigolds is really strong, like as an insecticide or something like that.
But it turns out there's this like micro biology reason that marigolds intertwine with tomato roots and protect them from this micro organism called nematotes. And you know, my didn't go to school for biology. And I called her. I was like, how did you know about this thing? And she was like, your grandma told me. And I don't know that. My grandma got past eighth grade. So I you know, it's just wild, right people know, right? Like, And then you look across cultures and there's some plants
that just show up everywhere as being magical. Mugwort is one all around the world. Mugwort is magical, yarrow is magical anywhere you go, South America, China, everywhere.
That is really interesting. Actually, that says something I think.
I think so too. It's really cool.
I ended up doing a I haven't finished it. I have a five part series of maybe the six I think it's only five, and I have like six or seven done ready to record it. I did magical herbs and the way they affect your twelve cranial nerves, and even that was so interesting realizing like what are they like what they do to your you know a lot of them will affect your vegas nerve and your old factory,
and like how it actually does start. Some of the interesting things that I thought was, you know that I found that kind of surprised me is that it almost seems like what they were using these herbs for, in a sense, it was doing in your physically right. And
it's like did they know that? Like somehow they just knew that and maybe didn't know how it worked, But I wonder if they actually understood, like when you smell this one, it's going to slow your vegas nerve down, so now your stomach will start to feel better, or your throat because it connects from here down to there. It's just like, did they know that?
It's amazing When I go to work with schools, like school children, I grow a lot of lavender in my yard because you know, I always bring it and we make like fairy houses and stuff. But the kids get like really calm because it calms them down, and it's just suthing you can do, yeah, to take care of, you know, people when you're working with them.
I love lavender for that reason. I always I use a lot of it. Well, not a lot of it, but I do use it often for that reason. I have like a wax burner. I put it like lavender oil in it to try to.
Like, you know, I guess I'm like, I harvested the early summer lavender. It's like drying. But yeah, it's like.
All over my g It's one of my favorite I love this smelly too, very good. So uh yeah, I guess. So when it comes to uh, what kind of sources actually, let me let me ask you something else first. Uh, was there a moment during the research where you felt like this is not just folklore, there is something like there is someone's real fear, real grief, real hope or attempt at like a real attempt to survive.
Yeah, definitely, And that was the thing I think that also drew me to it, like over the past few years with you know, all the conflicts in the world and you know, the first chapter of the book talks about incantation bulls, which everybody was living together in you know, the ancient world in the Middle East, and nobody was supposed to be going to the scribe to get magic spells. But the scribe, who is writing spelling incursive, like it's even in our language, right, you know, he was kind
of code switching to whoever the customer was. So if it was a Jewish person, you know, he'd write the spell and then be like in the name of Abraham at the end. And if it was you know, a Zoroastrian person or a Coptic person, they'd switch. And then later when Muslim people were there, the same thing it would be, you know, oriented towards them. So I was like, oh, well everybody has in common that we sneak off and
do taboo things, you know. And then as you read the spells, you read like, wow, we all have this the same vulnerabilities over thousands of years, Like we all want love, we all want protection, we all want health, we all want to make stuff happen, we all get angry and want revenge, you know, and it's just so like, like the the cursed tablets from ancient Rome are so petty. Let me see if I can find one. You know, when you're reading it and you're like, oh my gosh,
this is this is wild. You know, like this is so reality TV moment.
You know, it's like, wow, there was they're the way we are now. They've somehow managed to be like that back then. Way right. Yeah.
Yeah. This Pella Cursed tablet, it's like big and it's it's funny. The woman who wrote it says, I bind to prohibit marriage for Dionosapon. By this written spell. I prohibit all other women, be they widows or maidens, but prohibit Fetima in particular. I didn't like that's you and the spell to the spirit of my friend Macron. I leave it at her grave so she may bring it to you, Damons, only when I dig it up, unroll
and reread. Might a woman wed Dionysophon, but not before, for I wish for him to take no other woman than me. I wish to grow old with Dionysophon and no one else. I plead with you. Have pity on me, dear Damons, for I have no one. My family belittles me. I feel abandoned by all my friends. Protect this spell for my sake, so that their marriage does not happen and wretched, horrible Fetuma perishes and misery, while I become happy and blessed.
Yo. That is like so real and personal, like you know what I'm saying, like wow.
Yeah, yeah, you're also like calm down.
Yeah yeah yeah right, but like the person was like really like so honest in that thing. It's really cool to see that.
So there's that vulnerability, Yeah, there is that vulnerability and longing, and you know when it reminds you that when you feel lonely, you are not alone, right like that is that.
Was that was actually really cool to hear because it makes it sound like it's real, you know what I'm saying, Like that's things everybody thinks, you know.
Yeah. And then the you know, the crazy part is some of the places I was finding these things as you mentioned, you know, witch trial transcripts or you know the Tattletale monk who's writing back to the pope and telling on everyone's nahuattles spells and what's now Mexico, and he becomes the best record of the stuff that we have. Right, So I was joking with like snitches get witches.
You know what I had covered myself. I covered a Valentinis and then I covered I covered some other group of like kind of like Gnostic Christians and it's kind of funny how like sometimes you have to like kind of you'll take there'll be a lot of actually on
those people. There was a lot of hostile as you'd call it to where it's like you're reading people that critique them or didn't like them, and it's just funny sometimes even seeing it from that angle, it's just like it's kind of silly, but it is interesting how like that sometimes that's the way you even got to learn
about people is from reading like didn't they? And then that, to me, that proves that they must have been important enough for these important people in the Catholic Church to start condemning them one hundred percent.
There's this like indigenous magic practice from England that there's this book called It's like got one of those medieval titles that's like a paragraph there.
Yeah, that is like the Renaissance time. It's like, yeah, you get like the whole page is the title of the book. You're like, come on, I guess since you had the paper, you're going to use it up right.
Yeah. So these two schools heart Leave and Mulatories and they write Hazards of the Dark Arts Advice for Medieval Princes on witchcraft and magic, but it's really one prince. They're writing too, like they're really worried that this one Germanic prince in fourteen fifty six is going to get
you know, interested in magic. But this spell, there are people who conjure a loaf of bread and stick three knives into it, making three crosses, and attach a spindle to a spindle wheel, and two persons hold it on their ring fingers and they conjure the Holy Apostles and so you know, it's a it sounds almost like an unoffering, right, like a bread offering to the poly Apostles. But they're writing this as like critical, you know, like yeah, yeah,
exactly help with these people. But like so the whole book becomes this really neat way to look at spells from that era.
Yeah, it's just I thought it was funny, like the was telling on the other people. It's like I noticed that in the Catholic Church all of a sudden they sort of telling on the Gnostics that I guess hit him like and it's like so silly.
Yeah, the Gnostics you know, were not into Empire. They were into sort of.
I think they just wanted to from the material world. Yeah all that too, Yeah, oh huge, yeah, yeah, and so.
That's that's a little threatening to the Roman Empire version of Christianity.
It's really fascinating, Yeah, the history of it. I covered that recently too, and I had to get off the topic and we'll get back to your book. I just found that so interesting. When I started looking into the history of Christianity, I was like, wow, I did not know it went down like that.
It's so fascinating.
It's like true and I find it funny though, like a lot of Christians are against the Catholic Church, but it's like, yo, they're the ones who told you what to believe. It's like, so you actually listen to them anyway. Yeah, not to get controversial.
I've been writing. I've been writing about early Christians in Ireland because they're so it's so fascinating. It's, you know, Christianization without Romanization, and it made me understand why that was such a special belief system. You know, I'm Jewish,
so I am not an insider. But this idea that you could have your saint Patrick who was born who was a slave, right this religion where he's in a region where everyone's doing human sacrifice all the time, everywhere, all over the ancient world, people are just human sacrificing. Like there's you know, it's just a great fat thing. Lynton comes along and says, hey, no more human sacrifice needed. This guy already did it for everybody, you know, just
work on being nice to each other. And he dies the death of a slave, right, That crucifixion was a death of a slave death. And then that walks around and says, in this religion, anyone is you know, a child of God. That's pretty revolutionary and cool.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah sure.
And wild that that was happening.
So oh yeah, you know, that's what I even thought too, just even like just seeing like all the ideas and thoughts and even some of the differences between some Gnostic sex. It's it's very interesting. It's very interesting.
Though, super fascinating.
I agree, yeah, and like, and you know what the interesting thing is too, it seemed like the Gnostic sex, even if they had different ideas on certain things, they all still had no problem like kind of coming together or being around each other and accepting each other.
It just seemed like the Church had a problem with all that. I guess I don't know, but it was interesting to see if that's true. What I was reading, I was like, wow, that's pretty interesting that they all still kind of colm mingled and I didn't have a problem with each other's other ideas, they just didn't acknowledge it.
Yeah. I love that history, and there is a thread of that all the way through human history where we can, uh, you know, have strongly held beliefs and still love people who don't share them. Yeah, what happened crazy the internet?
Crazy? Did the research make historical magic look more organized or did it make it look messier, maybe more local, more personal, and more human when you started researching all this stuff.
Yeah, it definitely seems that's a really good question. It definitely seemed very like local and then it also is
so connected to language that that makes sense. Right, So like the spells, the cadence of them, the materials they reference, the plants they reference, but also the rhythms of them, like the stuff from you know, I'm just looking down at the book, but like things from the pow Wows, which is a book you know, from folk America, they have such a different rhythm than things from maybe even like like some of the African spare spells in the book. And then there's also this sense of I guess like
things bubble up and go underground. So there's like every now and then this language, this practice surfaces, and then it goes the way again. So it like services in the nineteen seventies for sure, and then you seet service again in the nineteen twenties, and then we're back in the eighteen eighties, and it's just like where things, you know, go underground and come back up, and that definitely affects, you know, the translations or the recitations of them.
I feel like I've even seen that happen in the witch craft the ceremonial community in like the last fifteen years. I feel like I've seen things get popular, de popular die in that time too.
It makes sense. Yeah, I mean I'm not definitely not an expert on that community, but that's that's really interesting. You know.
I've even seen that with like when I first got into it, all of a sudden seemed like chaos. Magic was like boom, it was the thing, and I'm kind of seeing that again, or maybe it would just passed again, but it seemed like ten years later, all of a sudden, it was the end thing to do again. I was like, oh, that's interesting. Now these ideas cycle.
Definitely, yeah, and then you know the it all reflects the importance of language, right. All of these are incantations, so there are things that you speak, and you know, the even the Bible starts with like the Lord said, let there be light, and then light is there, So we speak things into existence. So it makes sense that the spells would relate to the like time and place, the language people were speaking.
Oh for sure, especially when folk tradition, that's so regional kind of I feel like, you know right, that's why when you said local, I thought that right away. I was like, when you get into that stuff, a lot of it, especially even like you said, with the language, it could be so local.
Yeah, and folk, you know, is is kind of a Northern Hemisphere way of saying indigenous, right, like like that's the stuff that belonged to a place.
I like that a lot.
Yeah. And the thing that it points to too is like right now we're going into the realm of Ai, which is a large language model.
Right.
So I've learned how we think by learning how we speak. So there's something you know, we know from cognitive behavioral therapy to religion, like the way that we speak affects the way that we perceive and experience the world. Oh yeah, it must be why these things exist.
Right exactly. Yeah, you mentioned something about cadence, and that made me wonder if you happen to realize if any of that stuff I'm not expecting you that you even thought about checking. Did you happen to notice if any of it was like ever in like pentameter or hexameter specifically? That's quite a right. I thought I saw a walk by before before we record it. I was like, was that a cat?
She being on camera? Otherwise very grumpy the.
Yeah.
So part of that project for me was paying a lot of attention to cadence and when things needed also to rhyme or even doing non literal translations, like in an academic text we might have it like word for word, but then we lose the experience of this of the words, right, yeah, So like is it supposed to be lyrical or rhythmic? Is it supposed to be sparse? Is it supposed to be like a brag of words?
Like?
So I was paying a lot of attention to that and wanting to translate them in a way that brought not just the like literal like word for word, but the essence of the experience of it. So there's one that's like really well known called the nine wort spell. Let me so I can find it. But I think I really did that translation thanks to my poor editor like seven or eight times. Not I didn't send it to a seven or eight times. I send it to a three that you know, the nine words spell is
pretty well known. It's you know, wart means plant in so it's nine plants. And as I was reading it and reading the old translations of it too, because that's part of the thing, is like you try to do your own, but you look at other people's translations and see you know where you're at in relation to them. And so I began to realize, like this is more than just a spell. This is a pneumonic device to remember a recipe for a poultice, right that's made with
nine plants. And if you memorize the spell, you memorize the plants, the order they go in and the process, and it sort of also works as a transmitter, Like I can tell my daughter this and then she'll know these plants relate to each piece of this poultice and why right? And then so then I, once I understood that, I translated it again in a different way, and then it made sense to me like that that unlocked the spell.
Wow, that is really well really yeah yeah, yeah right, even saying back then they understood like ways of like implanting stuff into your mind.
Yeah, it's almost like they understood it, you know, better than we.
It' it's weird you still thinking that. Yeah, that is really cool. I know the reason why I asked about the pentameter and hexameter is because I think the oracles at DELFI, if they were to say anything, I think they wanted it supposedly a way of like saying it was genuine or not, it would be an hexameter. And
I know that we had somebody on. I don't know if it was the author that knew or maybe we looked into it after that we had the author run, but we had somebody on who covered Jim Morrison, and I do think he was in I think he was in the occult and a lot of his stuff was actually in pat Tabita as well. And we wonder is that is that is that kind of you know, like a call back to back then or was that an influence?
Yeah, I think it is, and I think that so we look at like a lot of bluegrass music is in pentameter, and that's like you know, aspirational music by man to God. Right, and so there's that old thing like if you were a Fixies fan, like Man is five, the devil is six and God is seven. That is something that's in music, and it's also something that's in you know, different ancient practices of numerology.
You know.
Again I said I was. I mentioned I was Jewish and Jewish history and Kabbalah and all that.
Oh oh yeah, it's a.
Big deal, right. So and there's numbers in bedded in everything that's written.
It's like a cod.
It is. And it also is thought to in in the magical thinking of that it's thought to imbue words with with you know, different kind of essences or powers as well. Yeah.
I love it. Yeah, I know. I'm really big into Jamatrim, big into well the her medica Bala put it that way. It's not your.
Cabala, but you know, not like Madonnacabla. I don't know.
Yeah, I know anybody who res web bread bracelet is supposedly practicing some sort.
Of Yeah, you definitely know more about it than I do.
Yeah, go ahead, did you have anything else? I'm sorry, you know.
I just found that nine Worts spell and the plants in it are mugwort, fennel or sam bucas way bread or plantain soon which is also called Lamb's cress, and then like cocksburg or glack grass, mayweed or camma meal. So it actually has like you can use one or the other, which is amazing, nettle, crab, apple, fennyl. So those are the plants and they're all like medicinal, So.
It was really cool. Yeah, it's funny. When you were answered this question, the last one I asked you, you actually did kind of answer like one or two other ones that I had, kind of like the translation and stuff. So I can skip forward. Do you think a spell can be taken out of its original culture and still remain as spell? It does become something else?
I think it must. I think context is important, right, Yeah, so I mean the true answers, I don't know. But then the other answer is, you know, things mean different things. I mean, you know, going back again to Judaism, like you read the Talmud every year, the Torah every year all year long, over and over again. And it's because as you change, the meaning of the words changes, right, the words don't change, but the meaning changes. If there's
something about the interaction. So if we're talking about an interaction between words, me reading that ancient Roman spell, you know, on a electronic media form, you know, on May twelfth, twenty twenty six, as opposed to someone carving it into brass and rolling it and placing it in an ancient Roman grave of someone they love, I mean, one hundred percent, Like there has to be a different meaning there.
Yeah, I thought that, especially about like very localized stuff. It's like the language I think might matter even the full you know, it could be the sound that the language even makes that's different than the other language. And the specific stuff too, like if they're working with stuff that's literally only in their area, you know, sometimes I wonder if that will you know, makes a difference.
Yeah, And it's a tricky thing about cross cultural work. Like my next book is about prayers. So again, like nic language transforming things, and you know, it's important to read things from other cultures and you know and and ask questions about them and you know, try to understand them. But you know, it's that balance of also not being like giving a false impression or appropriating stuff in a way that's like not that's denigrating. So it's it's it's
a balancing act. But I think it's important to talk about our shared humanity.
M Yeah, what did you learn about curses? Where they mostly revenge fantasies, legal tools for powerlessness, emotional release, or genuine spiritual warfare in the minds of the people using them, or is it a combination of all of them.
I think it's a combination of all. I mean, of course, like if I wanted to just write this book and be just all right, curses and negative stuff, that's the stuff that got recorded the most because of who was doing the recording, right, Like putting crosses into bread and culturing an apostle is not really you know, as cautionary. It's like, this is a cune air form of Luenian incantation from the second BC, second millennium BC, and it
says he spat curses and lies like sour fruit. May they smash him and deliver him to the goddess of malediction and perjury. He spoke the evil into being. That was like a countercurse. It was written on clay cuffs that someone could wear. It's not a trip. So yeah there, I mean it definitely is like you know, I there's this guy says, make her. This is from Macedonia in
the fourth century. Just an excerpt to Anubis. Make her attracted to me, Bring her to supplicate herself to me, to roll at my feet with passionate desire, melting at every hour of every day, unable to stop thinking of me, gets like burying.
Yeah, wow, he was thirsty.
Yeah. Yeah, here's a I cast see thou, damned and cursed spirit into that lake of fire, which is prepared for these spirit and there to remain forgotten. So that's a spirit casting out. Yeah, it's it's pretty it's pretty wild. Like the language gets really delicious though in these things.
Yeah, that sounds crazy.
Fragments that people have saved. So oh, there's a lot of these ancient Roman spells. A bunch of them all are really uh cursing. Venusta slave of Rufus. I don't know what he what she was up to, but she puts somebody off.
Wow, Yeah, that's funny.
There's one for catching a thief. Lady Nemesis got us of revenge. I offer you a stolen cloak and a pair of boots. Let him who wore them not nor recover them except with his life with his spilled blood.
Oh, I got serious.
To bring back my boots.
Want of people someone stole the boots and stolen boots. When it came to like healing charms and stuff, looking into them in like your research, did they feel closer to medicine, prayer, folk psychology or magic or you know.
Again, Yeah, the the curses feel like like, you know, maybe not the best choices, and the the the healing terms are so beautiful, like this is from ancient Greece, Flee Biting Fly a wild wolf, wolf seeks your blood. And then this one is Lakota Sunrise, May you behold a dawn appears, behold it So it's like praying for someone to wake in the morning again and they're they're beautiful and all. So you know, there's this one from ancient Mexico. You know, it really is addressing a specific illness,
you know, and talks about how to heal it. So again that kind of mnemonic device, and the early American one is to stop bleeding. I walk through a green forest, there I find three wells, cool and cold. The first is called courage, the second is called good, and the third is called stop the blood. And then you're supposed to cross yourself a couple of times. So there's that mentioned.
That's really interesting. Thanks, love. I love hearing like the way that they spoke back then. You know, it's like, damn, they spoke better than we do now, more eloquently.
Yeah, it's it's pretty fun.
That's really interesting just hearing you. When you hear that stuff, it kind of puts you in the mind of the people then too.
I guess, yeah, I think that that's that's the you know, language is just so important for us, and it makes a huge difference in in the way the world exists for us is how we speak to it and about it, which is good news because that means we have a lot of power in our lives to make our lives feel better.
That's true. Oh no, yeah, I think we have a lot more control and power it. Yes, for sure. Did you notice like repeated ritual patterns across cultures and stuff like, you know, binding, loosening, ceiling commanding, breathing.
Oh yeah, ceiling binding, summoning, vanishing, Yeah.
The normal type thing. Yeah, how it is now too you see stuff like that still.
Yeah, yeah, there's the summoning makes me really nervous. You know. I'm like, oh, man, like they're just going for did you not watch a B movie in the ages stuff.
Like okay, yeah you didn't watch like Army of Darkness or Word later the Ecronomicon.
But yeah, so, and you know, there's this attraction to stuff like mirrors, moves of water, fire, smoke, ash, like just really like you know, consistent.
That's really interesting. I recently started a series and I called it like the Mechanics of Magic, and I was like looking at certain basic things that kind of been used like over time, like you know, from the beginning that we still incorporate now and like the things that
you just said. It was all things that are so so far have covered flames, mirrors, smoke, and when you start using like the whole mirror thing, if you're doing it like in a dark room or it's like even in an obsidian mirror, you're you know, however, you're using it and it's not a clear enough image, and you can use smoke to help make this happen. Your brain will actually fill in the gaps itself and create an
image for you to see, and it may not be correct. Yeah, and like there were certain things that I that they've showed in scientific studies that when the flame like if you're especially if you're like looking put it this way. They've found now that they think that the way of flame flickers in certain caves when they drew on the wall, it actually would animate it if the if the flicker was correct.
That makes sense.
And they've also noticed now that if with your if you stare at a candle long enough, they did the experiments on people with your eyes closed, it doesn't matter if your male, female, where you're from, what part of the world you're from, everybody starts sharing the same exact visuals. So I'm wondering again, I know this sounds crazy, but it's like, did they catch onto this back then and they knew that these were ways that would change your actual perception in your world?
This?
Yeah, like did they realize these tactics worked? Maybe didn't understand the science, but notice this does.
I absolutely believe that, I mean think about how much more time people spent around of fire, you know in Celtic hearth culture or here in the US, or you know ancient people. Just that's just part of the experience right of the world, Like you need the fire to cook, you need the fire to keep the animals away, and then fire also becomes this magical experience we all have when we just go camping and you sit next to it and you feel transported and you're concentrating on that
and closing your eyes or using reflective surfaces. Of course, that's going to be amazing. I bring in. I have an obsidian mirror. I teach college, and I one of the things I teach students a little bit is about like tonal variation and drawing. It's like visual storytelling and
the black mirror. In the Victorian times, they used to use it to draw, you know, landscapes and stuff, because when you look at the landscape, you know, if I was drawing, I'd hold it and then look at it while I'm drawing this landscape over here, because it reduces it down to just the tones and gradations, and so it's like a neat way to kind of make a They knew it was very atmospheric looking, right, and it helped them to wild. Isn't that wild? To reduce things
down to elements? And the other day I was, you know, I have this mirror and I have like fifty students, and I'm talking to them about it, and then we look up and you know, we're outside. I always teach outside, and there the whole building has like the tinted windows, and it's functioning literally like a black mirror, like we can see the sky behind in just tonal variations. So that's what we started using.
Oh wow, that is why. That's pretty cool. Nice. There's something weird with that stuff, very interesting, very interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you think modern witches sometimes lose something when spells, when spell words are separated from the old physical ritual context.
I assume so, but I don't know. I mean, I think I believe that, Like, I really believe that anything you set an intention for and pay attention to, especially if you said it using words or eat written or spoken, and if you like go into a practice of paying attention to it, that you will manifest that like that that will happen in your life. And I believe that things you withdraw your attention from like that person you keep the office or whatever, like if you withdraw attention
from that whole thing, it will wither and die. So you know, I'm sure that there's differences, and but also we we make meaning with our intentions and with our commitment to shifting things.
I like that. I think as well, say thank you, thank you. I kind of wanted to go like a little bit into I guess like maybe your art and your art background film, your background isnt art, film and historical storytelling. Did that change the way you saw these spells almost like scenes or little voices or ritual performances, kind of in snippets of time.
I think, so, I mean I didn't start writing. I was really I loved writing a lot, and I when I was in to get into college, the thing that got me a scholarship to go to college was visual art. And I was kind of uncomfortably in the visual art world for it because I thought like, Okay, this is what I'm supposed to do. But my dream was always to write and illustrate, and I love research and history
and old books. And it wasn't until the pandemic that I kind of like, you know, we all sat still for a minute, and I was like, you know what, I don't want to I don't want to be in the art world. It's weird. And you know, the film being a film professor is so funny because like I never have taken a film class. But what I started doing. I had this longing still to tell stories even though I was a painter. So I started making films because
they were images or I could tell stories. And and I was like in a lot of bands so I could like do the music. And then so this is like a real return to my heart's joy, Like I am happier than I've ever been writing books and illustrating them.
That like, that's my thanks, that's great.
I was like, you know, I did one last museum show and then I I really don't I don't really I want to make stuff people can hold in their kitchen, not stuff that's.
I get that though. I get that it's more pressure. Yeah, like they get to bring it, they bring the art back home with them at least too. Yeah.
And so then I started, like with all my plants and stuff, I've started making these textile designs. And you know, last week somebody bought a shower curtain from my shop. And that just I can't even tell you how delighted I was. I was like, they're gonna be They're gonna have this in their house like and then like it's it's so great, you know. And then they're gonna move it around and it's gonna make their bathroom beautiful. Like that is where it's at for me right now.
That's great, though, I understand that big, big difference from them and being I guess, yeah, like presenting something up on a wall that people just get to look at.
Yeah, or like people who've paid admission fees and like get there and know when to go, and and then it goes into storage and you know it's it's it's just, yeah, I don't I don't need to. I don't really want to. I'm not comfortable in that world as much as I am. I'd rather make shower curtains.
Oh guess he's to be serving people more of a purpose too. I guess if you think about it, Yeah, yeah, when you when you looked at some of these like older I guess like some of these older spells or whatever, did did they any of them feel like cinematic to you? Like you could almost picture it like going on actually, oh.
Yeah, especially like some of the Inuit spells are so lyrical at least freaking find more really quick. Well, here's a mirror one. Oh my gosh. It's from the eleventh century Moorish Spain, from the Pika Trix. If you have a mirror, guard it well, gaze into it, knowing within you will bring together winds, spirits, demons, the living and the dead. All summoned shall be obedient to you and heed your command. You will thereby have power over winds, spirits,
and demons. And so you shall do what you wish over a basin full of water. When you are washed and clean, call them soon. They will come to you. Soon you will behold the fulfillment of what you seek. That was beautiful, It's very cinematic.
And that you said was from the Pika Tricks, correct, Yeah, yeah, you have some really great stuff in that.
Book, amazing stuff.
And that's more of Islam, isn't it.
So yeah, in Irish Spain, like so it's you know, this is like the North African Muslim population of Spain, which in fourteen ninety two Spain decides, you know, that's the year Columbus sales Ocean blue. But it's also the Spain decides, you know, the North African countries have too
much wealth and power. They want to control the trade routes, and they also would like to make their population more homogeneous, so they go through this thing to like expel all the Moors or Muslims from Spain and to either murder
or convert all the Jews. And so this project is really around that's the Inquisition the last three hundred fifty years, and the project is around like consolidating the power for the church right in Spain and eventually Portugal, like the whole Iberian peninsula, and then also seizing control of those like wealth creating trade routes like from North Africa. So yeah, the medieval world is like so international and insane and
it's really interesting. But yeah, the Pika Tricks is like a few centuries before that, you know, everybody's kind of living in Spain, there was a period where people were cohabitating and you know, equally violating their religious rules by creating magic books.
And equally violating their religious rules. Everybody had zero fox.
Exactly. It's a lot more fun. We have zero fucks.
Everybody was getting along. You see what.
Happens, like, should we start a new political party, the zero Fox?
Everybody would get along at that point, we won't be on the same page. Good, I'm tired of this everything everybody is.
Yeah. This one on the opposite page is one that I had learned as a kid, and it's the Witch's Ladder, which I swear it works. Oh yeah, yeah, I I do, I do. This is the one that that I there. Yeah, that's my thing.
That's nice. I like that. That's when jam that's cool. That's cool that and.
Like, you know, I learned to read tarot cards as a kid.
Oh really yeah.
So my last museum show, I actually decided, like I don't want to make a painting, I want to make a tarot card deck. And that ended up being my first book. That's this guy, this is good.
Yeah.
I made a whole day. Me and my friend Luis made a tarot card deck. That's the book, and it's in English and Scottish. It's like the only bilingual one out there right now. And then at the opening I read cards for the first time since I was, like, you know, in my teens, and it was so fun. It was the most fun I've ever had an art opening.
That is cool. I uh, I forgot. I have questions for you now since now since you you're into I guess you know the Kabala, whatever you know of it.
Do you attribute to do you attribute to.
Taro to it?
Can? I? Can? I?
Do you attribute tarot cards to the to the Kabbala? Because there is that that train of Actually.
Yeah, there's like a big discussion about that right now. I guess the book came out recently that's tying transmission of the Torah and Jewish culture through Tarot, and so that is you know, people who have focks are displeased on both sides like oh, but I mean again, we're in this kind of there are things that are you let me see, there's things about the numerology that of course are descendants of these ancient ideas that have been
influencing Abrahamic cultures right forever. And then also what I started writing a book about this and I kind of set it aside because I started doing the plant book. But is the relationship between tarot, its structure, its stories, and alchemy, Like so the alchemical process in tarro, I feel like that is like a really intense connection. And again, of course these guys are coming from again Abrahamic traditions which relate back to Kabbalah. But you know the other
thing is I can just read playing cards. I learned to do that as a kid too, Like if you give me a deck of playing cards, I can read them. And playing cards have a really strange relationship to the calendar, like fifty two cards fifty two weeks in a year. There's four suits, there's four seasons. There's this season of light and the season of dark. There's also day, which
is the red suits at night. And you know, of course the suits relate to like hearts relates to emotions, and swords relates to thoughts, you know, just like in Terror, and then clubs and spades and so like it. You know, clubs is the spirit or clubs is no. Clubs is the worldly things like the pentacle, and then the the spirit is the is the spades.
So I knew that stuff, but I didn't know that I never realized the fifty two weeks, the four seasons.
Yeah, so I feel like there's a lot too hard card culture, right, like cardomancy and card culture. And then you know, in my weird brain, like it really works for me like, I feel like I'm that's something I can do. And then I did a fundraiser. I don't do it for money ever, but I will go and do it as a volunteer to help raise money for
nonprofits or something. And so I was at one raising money for my friend's nonprofit for like kid's art, and the lady who was supposed to read tea leaves didn't show up flake and so not doing you know, a service to the tea leaf reading community with that being But I was like, well, I guess I could.
She was.
My friend was like so upset, and she's like, maybe I got to learn how to google tea leaf read. I was like, okay, I can read tea leaves, you know, I know how to do it. And so I was doing it, but it wasn't. I was like, eh, I'm not that good at it. So I think it's just you know, for me, like focusing on a picture together with someone that that taps into my empathy, my empathic skills. And then I think other people have other ways of tapping into their empathic skills. Yeah.
I think even some of us have certain triggers where like you know, the card for you or he leaves to somebody else might actually trigger some like you start going into in depth float in the brain or something. You know.
How you know how to read taro cars. The first thing I say in my book is like, you could also put this book down and never pick it up again and just see what comes up for you when you look at this, you know, and it's almost like a rorshack, like you, it'll help you tap into whatever needs to surface. Right.
Interesting, I like it. I like it. It's fun. What is one speller incantation in the book that you think reveals the most about human fear?
Oh, human fear? Huh hmm. There's a ruin of the well. It's Scottish, it's originally was in Gaelic, and it's for protection during a nighttime walk to the well, the shelter of Mother Mary be nigh. Bless my hands and my feet to go out to the well and to bring me safely home. And to bring me safely home. May Warrior Michael aid me, May bridget calm, preserve me, May sweet Rihannic give me light, and marry pure be near me,
and marry pure be near me. And I just remember that, like when I was a kid and I had to go out to the well or go out, and we had rabbits and we had to make sure the water wasn't frozen, and you know it's night and just that like profound fear like that that room calls in all the big name goddesses, you know, you know, there's.
So many things I found about this interesting. First of all, I think it's kind of interesting that you hear like Michael Bridget, Mary, like they're actually incorporating like a couple of Well, I just find it interesting that you got Michael and Mary and then you bring in Bridget in like you know that wouldn't be accepted now, Like you know what I'm saying if you're a religious person.
Right, Well, part of that's the strategy of you know, Catholicism to come on, everybody, let's get on board the you know, Virgin of guadal Lupe Bridget. We can bring in the same Bridget. You know. Part of it too, is like why not call in your whole arsenal? Like you're growing up in kind of a colonized country, right, Although that I hate using that work because the meaning of it has shifted so much. Yes, so you're you're growing up in a country that's like where your indigenous
culture is. You're not supposed to talk about it because that threatens the people who are in charge. But you still do, and it's like part and parcel for your daily life. Like I've heard things from my Irish grandma that I heard them as a kid and accepted them whole cloth, and then I find out later like, oh that that's actually that's like a really ancient Celtic druidy thing. Cool, you know, so the stuff like we we in our vernacular. So then when you're scared and you're about to go
down to the well, why not call in everybody? You know that's a loose.
I get that. Yeah, I just thought it was cool to see that done. I was like, oh wow, that's yea, I acknowledge that. And you know, something I even you think about from back in the day, and like I'm thinking about like you know, you know, hundreds of years ago and even as a child, like how if I was younger, how I experienced going outside, you know, than how I look at it now. And if you were to even think about like hundreds of years ago, we
didn't have all this artificial light. So when they went outside. The only thing that was giving you any light was the moon, really, right, and it just had to be such a different really kind of a different world to people. I would even say, because of not having that artificial light, your body is going to actually your sensory in your
nerves actually going to respond differently. So it's just it's very interesting when you think about like how night, even as a child for me, or even back then, could be actually considered something to be scared about technically in a sense like now it's just like, oh, it's a big deal if I was to walk out in my backyard and go grab something and come back. But thinking of as a child and then thinking of as a back then when it was there was you know, no artificial light, no artificial light.
There might be marauders, right who could steal you. There might be animals coming to drink from the well, right, So but yeah, it's just the unknown. And so you know, we see like the Puritans come to the US and they immediately are sure that the forest is a devil's country, right, which is so different than how people felt, like the Gnostics we were talking about earlier, where it's like the wilderness good for you, spiritual you know. So there's this fearful consumption.
That is funny because I remember as a kid as like the woods as being like a scary place to go at night or like you know, just like, oh, you don't know what's in there.
I grew up like really in the middle of the woods, in like very rural and I remember the first time, like I made friends with some city folks and brought them back home, and you know, we were walking around at night and they were terrified.
I mean, I thought it was spooky, so I went and checked out anyone. Like I remember elementary school. It was like so creepy. I was like, oh, we got to go in this. He went in there, oh you know so, but yeah, I can see how like, yeah, you bring city folk in there, like I ain't going in there probably lines or bears or something. Yeah.
Yeah, they didn't want to step off the you know, the road. Oh my god.
That's funny.
But I like that kind of stuff.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's thought that was interesting to think about. That's that in that sense, like back then and even as a child. Yeah, it's definitely a different experience.
When you're a child. You you I believe when I was a child. I'll speak for myself. When I was a child, I experienced the magic of the world so intensely.
Right, that's really yeah, I think we normally did.
I was pretty like on my own. I spent a lot of my childhood alone in the woods, like even you know, five six years old, walking aroundside. Part of that's just feral like nineteen eighties stuff, but like part of it's my cuckoo family. But I felt, I always say, like the trees saved me. Like I felt the presence of the forest in a very positive way. But sometimes I felt like really frightening things too.
Oh I remember that growing up too.
Yeah, nice, what was it like? Like where what was that?
Well, Like I was on Long Island, so it wasn't like the city of New York. But like, I just remember a lot as a child, Like I didn't have a brother until I was nine, so I mean there was a big difference between our age. So like there was a lot of things that like I would either do like kind of like in nature. Like again, like I even said, I had woods like next to my house sometimes I would go in there. My mom was really big, Like she had two different gardens in the yard.
So I helped her. I found that stuff that I just thought it was cooler I was, you know, I guess I liked my mom, so I wanted to help her. But I have like a lot of memories of like just like dealing with like nature. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, help her garden, I had the woods. Then there was times where it's like I remember as a kid that I'd have memories where it's like I would just lay in the grace and stare at the sky and watch the clouds, and it's just like you're the shit.
You didn't you just yeah, and you just looked at it with or in wonder and it's like you had no preconceived notions, but you just wondered, like what is this. I think that's like as a child, how it seems magical because you haven't been programmed enough yet to start making decisions, so you're just like, wow, I don't it just seems magical. You don't have a way to explain it, and you're open to it, I think, and it is.
I mean, it is so beautiful. It's such a miracle. Like one of my best memories is just laying in the backyard, backyard and looking straight up. And I know my mom was probably happiest when she was in the garden. That those are my best memories of her, and so that's probably why I love plants. This is the other cat. I did not intentionally adopt two black cats. They both just showed up.
I was just thinking. I was like, wasn't the other one black too?
Yeah? Yeah, Actually when this lady showed up, she was the other one. And then I was like like, open the door.
Yeah, wow, that's funny. Maybe she thought she'd dupious she saw the other one go in there, She's like, maybe I could.
And she did, and then she said. My husband was like, okay, well, we're gonna have to take her somewhere, you know. And then I noticed him walking around the kitchen. He's carrying her while he's doing stuff, and I was like, we're keeping her.
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah yeah. If he's already picking up the cat and being nice, do you know what. Yeah, that's a good way to tell if the guy's going to keep the animal. That's pretty funny. Yeah.
My son is now and he's turning My youngest is turning twelve, and he's he's got a PowerPoint presentation he's going to do to try and convince everyone that we need a dog. So I'm wondering how that's going.
To go over. Yo, that is that is funny.
We'll see.
Yeah, that is great. I got like two more questions. Will you If someone today wants to approach ancient spells respectively without treating them like toys or aesthetic objects, where should they begin?
I mean, I think just and I say this in the book too, it's like just to be reverent of words. You know, the way that we speak to each other, the way that we speak about our children, and the way we speak about the people we care about. The stories we tell ourselves have a massive effect on our mental health. And there was just this really big longitudinal
study that came out two years ago. I think that they had like forty five thousand subjects where they, you know, really determined that being able to tell your story is incredibly beneficial to your mental health. So that means that when you pick up, you know, an incantation, it's something you're going to say and give your your power of your words to you know, you want to be reverent of that and be careful with it.
I like that, I as well said no, especially when you're second personal and stuff too.
You. Yeah.
And finally, after writing ancient spells and incantations, do you believe the old words are dead history or are they still waiting for breath that they're still good?
I think they're still alive. And I think I'm working on a new project right now I'm thinking about. This is going to sound weird, but like setting boundaries and like protecting yourself and like again reorienting the way you tell your own story to yourself and having that help you, you know, figure out your boundaries with others. And I've been going back to the stoics a lot, and I
find the stoics to be really interesting. And I know they're kind of like they've been kind of appropriated by like the menosphere, but there's actually really deep feeling there, you know, because that's what they're talking about, is like how do I grapple with my feelings? And I found
this one stoic who all his work is gone. His name is Hecatoau of Rhodes, and we have forty nine fragments I think it's forty seven or fort of stuff he said, and they exist in Seneca's work, and in other stoics who are like, let me tell you, like Seneca's writing has this pen pal and he's like a famous Stoic and he's writing to his pen pal and he's like, oh, and let me tell you this one cool thing that Hecato said to me one time and
then he writes it out. My favorite is Hekato's says something I've done for that's changed me is I have become a friend to myself. And that's like the theme of this whole book. And because I read that fragment and you know, and then I went through and I translated all of Hakato's fragments into English, which hasn't been done,
you know, and collected yet. And I was thinking about him because of the fire at the Alexandria Library, or the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, like many fires, much in a gle act, we lost like ninety percent of ancient knowledge. And this guy only exists in these fragments. And so what happens when we like wake him back up again, right, and we say, like, have you decided to befriend yourself? You know? Here he's back again.
That is actually I mean that could be magic in itself right there, right, I actually say friends with yourself.
One hundred percent, and that's from five hundred BC.
Drop jewels back then.
Like that then right right, my kids we're putting on the kids table. I'm like, oh my gosh, my kids are like what I'm like, this is thousands of years old.
It's like, wow, yeah, that's stuff that you know. Content creator isn't basically kind of spitting out themselves now something along those line. It's true when you see old ideas like actually, uh kind of reshaped in history.
Yeah, I think we're gonna need it. The world is I'm sure everyone all through time is felt like the world was changing and moving really fast. But the world is changing and moving very fast.
Oh no, it is. It is especially right now, even with technology and AI you know all that stuff. I'll see it firsthand because I use chat ept for some stuff and it's just what I've seen change in the last few months is actually wild.
I was like, yeah, I really love it as a research Yeah, yeah.
Oh it's great for that. You could yeah you might. For me, I'll have to ask it five times to keep checking for this to see if there's any academia on it. It will keep pulling stuff. I mean I find it all at once. But yeah, it is great for academic studies and history and science.
It is. And then it's also like really bad for you if you let it write for you.
Oh yeah, you have to go through that ship and yeah you have to.
Rec every time like someone starts. It's like you can spot it immediately, and you know at some point you're gonna I knew this guy who's a great writer, and I loved his books, and he then got really into like Twitter when Twitter was Twitter, you know, and he was writing these like one hundred and seventy character tweets, like over and over and over again. And it changed his writing, right because that's he repeated that training for his brains. Yes, I love it for research. Don't love
it for writing. My students seem like they have brain damage.
Yeah, it's very weird. Yeah, it's a fine line. I think to walk with that thing where I think it could be very useful, and then you can also actually, you know, kind of be negative.
I think the thing that I say about it is like I enjoy drinking chardonay, but I don't give it to my kids. So I feel like it's more for like a grown up not because that thing we were just talking about laying under the trees. We're building architecture in our minds that helps us to be able to
discern all all kinds of things about life. And so if we remove those experiences from childhood, which we've kind of done, that is why we're seeing anxiety, a lack of resilience, and a lack of cognitive function.
So yeah, well that's really it's really interesting. I like that.
I like that.
When that was even bringing me back to like a kid, I remember, like it's just funny. It's like and I wonder if, like if more people live this way, would they not like put it this way? Like as a child, I would climb We had an apple tree, so a lot of times I would climb the apple tree. And then there was even like another like a pine tree or something in front of the house too. Dad would get a lot of like either squirrels or birds and
they're like nesting. So I would climb these things as the case, cause I wanted to go look at this stuff. And it's like, you know, there was the fear of like falling and hurting yourself or even kind of slightly maybe thinking oh I could die if I fell from there.
And it's just like I wonder if if more people did stuff like that when they were younger, would they not be so scared or I don't know, like would you end up different when you get older, like different things or a fear instead of stuff that is silly.
Or just being used to doing stuff that you're scared of doing. So, like this semester, I have a class of fifty four students. They're mostly science majors, and I decided to experiment on them, and so I wrote a class where like every week, every other week, they would spend three hours outside unstructured and have to make something
from stuff they found in nature around the camp. So like basically I'm making them make forts, right, And I did sort of a like an assessment before and after, and they found that there they became more resilient with being outside, which had been hard for them. They became more resilient with open ended prompts because the first day I said go make something, and they were like, but.
I don't know what to do specific right, Yeah, I was like, no, just.
Figure it out, Like you got to figure it out like go ahead, and and then they also became their fine motor skills, improved their hands, like physically got stronger. Because I'm seeing kids now were like colle students. I'm teaching them how to remove perforated edges from paper that I tear out of a art pad, or you know, I'm teaching them to make a pinch pot, and they don't have the fine motor skills or hand strength to
manipulate clay. So this is I wanted to see if I could affect this architecture because they're still we still we all have the capacity to grow right and build. So it worked.
That is awesome. That's pretty good.
It was pretty cool. Like I was like, oh hooray.
Nice.
It was like after last semester because last Mauster, I was like, oh my god, what's wrong with these people? But it was the last semester was my first group of iPad native kids or tablet native like kids who grew up with tablets and iPads and you could eat. The drop off was profound.
Oh wow.
Yeah, so so just you know that thing where our parents would lock us out from after breakfast till the lights came on. It probably helped us.
I remember, like me and my friends that could keep going off. But like like me and my friends we had like you know, a lot of woods by us out on Long Island, and like it was like this this reg like bike jump that we made that was like the ramp was almost going like ninety degrees. It was just like you're just shooting yourself straight up in the air. So many of us bent our bike rims jumping this thing, cause you'd go up so high by
the time you came down you'd bend at tire. But like and I'm like, we would do that then like again zero Fox been like oh, let's dring out whatever. My father would be like how many how many rims are you gonna bend doing this? You know?
And it hacked arc model.
Yeah, it's like now I'd be like, holy shit, no way.
Yeah. We just I just went back to my hometown for the first time in like thirty years. I took my family and there's this like you know, like we went down into the woods and there's this like creek and then there's this bridge and I was like, oh, me and my friends built this, and they were.
Like what I was like, yeah, you mean the town didn't supply that because.
We wanted we wanted to do with y'all to go down the huge hill like and then round the corner and then like Caddie style on our skateboards. So we wanted to sit like two skateboards because then you're extra heavy, so you get more distance and like sit opposite, hold on and then go and then down and then go down into the woods and across the bridge and up
the side. That was the goal. So we spent a whole summer building this bridge with like stuff we stole from construction sites and and it's still.
That is hilarious. That is great. Though you left the mark.
Yeah, I was like, I can't believe this thing is still here. And then I started walking out on it.
I was like, I don't know about that, kid, But you left play memories for other people though, who did use it. Ifty that's cool.
It's wild about just like catching air on a skateboard, you know, like Loki evil style.
It's just like yo, yeah, I just yeah, we're we're definitely more wild than I think, reckless and less fear of growing up and I.
Mean maysually there's like a happy medium.
Yeah yeah, yeah, right, that's you know, totally true. Let's find a happy medium from now until then and they'll probably be fine.
Yeah.
I like it. I like it. This is really awesome. I had a really good time with you. I really appreciate it. Yeah, of course, of course, and I your.
Listeners should know that, like you made this happen, like I you know, there was like cross wires with getting me on and you didn't give up. And I'm so grateful.
No, no, no, for sure, for sure, I see Like like I said, as soon as I saw you on social media, I was like, oh, I just got to asking myself because again I looked at the book and I you know, looked through it understood what was going on, and they looked at the illustrations and I was like, oh, this book is good. I really like it. I highly suggest this book, especially for the art itself. I think it's beautiful.
And I'm a ding dong, I like, don't check the Instagram messages that are here. I'm sorry a hundred so it took me away. But yeah, it's just like when I saw this podcast, I was like, oh, this guy is so cool. I really want to go on.
I'm glad you did I'm glad. I definitely and tell you the truth, I would really I to get you out in the future, probably maybe even the Taro or that of the book you wrote, So definitely keep in talking to me time.
I'll just come hang out with you. I can just regular skateboarding and.
Sounds good. Yeah, I love it. Awesome, Thank you so much. And let let everybody know about your book and where they can find it. You know all this and that.
Okay, so this is ancient spells and incantations. It just came out in April. This guy came out in July. I'm really interested. I'm having a good run. And then last year in October was when the Tarot Carts book came out. And you can get them all anywhere books are sold, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble and bookshop dot org. If you want to support your local store without leaving your house, they would be in your local store too, and if not, ask for them. But thank you.
And then if you want to get in touch with me, I have a website. It's my first name, you need my last name, Rice ryc dot com and it's real easy to find all my contacts and stuff there.
Awesome great. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I had a great talk. I thought this was a blast and definitely looking forward to getting you back on, especially again for that planned stuff in the tower. I would really be interested in picking.
It.
Yeah, hopefully get more people on too, it'll be a little bit more fun. But yeah, again, this was awesome, even just the two of us. I had a great time. I had a great conversation. And that is the end of another Recult Rejects and until the next one, everybody be well later