The BS-Free Witchcraft Podcast
A monthly witchcraft podcast, minus all of the usual BS. Trae, a practicing witch for over twenty years, talks about the history, practices, and current events of the modern Witchcraft movement without sugar coating any of it for you. It’s fun?
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11. A Witch Phase (Not the Moon Kind)
It's generally accepted that witchcraft is "just a phase" for some people -- that they'll dabble a bit and then move on from it. I guess my question then is... is this actually a bad thing? Isn't trying out stuff good? I think it is.
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10. The Satanic Panic
The Satanic Panic of the 70s, 80s, and 90s shaped the Modern Witchcraft Movement in a lot of unexpected ways. Its effects still ripple through a lot of our sources, so in this installment of the podcast we're digging into this extremely weird part of American history. It's a bit of a doozy, after all.
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9. The Wiccan Rede
The Wiccan Rede is the foundational moral principle of Wicca. As it's one of the larger forms of Witchcraft practiced today, I thought we'd dig into it and understand where it came from, what it means, and why it's important.
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8. Technopaganism
On this eighth episode of the podcast, we're talking about good old Technopaganism. Well, "Technowitchcraft" is probably the better term, but I'm old and from the 90s. In any case, the point is that there's a lot of ways that technology can be incorporated into Witchcraft, but there are a lot of questions we have to ask along the way. Or something.
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7. Be Ridiculous
On this episode of the podcast, the topic is the importance of accepting that we're all ridiculous human beings and that's it's a good thing. Witchcraft should be done with a sense of play, and we should all keep that in mind before we take ourselves too seriously. Because when we take ourselves too seriously, none of us are remotely pleasant to be around. Doing witchcraft by rote isn't the best idea, gatekeeping is bad, and there's probably not a wrong way to do a spell. Unless you like light yourself on fire or something. Try not to do that.
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6. Witchcraft on Television
How witches are represented on television and media has always been a controversial topic in the modern witchcraft community, and 2018 has seen several high profile series launch with the reboot of Charmed and the adaptation of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. In this episode, Trae looks at these new shows and how they represent witchcraft in popular culture -- and how they fall short.
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5. Building Your Own Path
On this episode of BS-Free Witchcraft, Trae attempts to cover a topic from one of the show's listeners: How the heck do you get started in Witchcraft in the first place? What we end up with is twenty minutes of Trae attempting to cover this exceptionally broad topic which is, at the very least, entertaining... and hopefully informative. Hopefully.
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4. Let’s Get Spooky!
With Samhain and Halloween just around the corner, the show is going full on spooky this episode. Joining me again is Lee Bradford, and we spend the whole show talking about ghost stories, personal experiences, liminal spaces, murder, and so much more. This episode is also over an hour long, so strap in for this deluxe, extra podcasty edition of the show!
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3. The History of Wicca
On this episode Trae digs deep into the history of Wicca, and tries to give the most accurate history of the religion as they can. I mean, yeah, we know this is a general Witchcraft podcast, but Wicca is the most widely practiced form of Witchcraft in the US, UK, Canada and Australia... so how it got started is kind of important for the modern Witchcraft movement. And trust me, there aren't any pulled punches here.
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2. How To Become a Witch
In this episode Trae tackles the question "How do you become a witch?" The answer, of course, turns out to be amazingly easy -- do some witchcraft. Of course, there's more to the episode than that. Dragging fellow witch Lee Bradford onto the show, Trae and Lee tell their personal stories about how they came to their (different forms) of witchcraft. Afterwards they discuss things like gatekeeping and other obstacles new witches might find starting their practice.
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1. The Basics
In this inaugural episode of BS-Free Witchcraft Trae decides to start at the very beginning. It's a very good place to start. Mainly this episode focuses on the basics of the modern witchcraft movement -- because how can we have a discussion if we don't actually define the terms we're working with? From defining "witchcraft" itself to poking at random corners, we're covering as much as we can cram into a half an hour. You know how like every witchcraft website has a FAQ page? This is the podcast equivalent of that.
