And That's Why We Drink - Introducing… Rituals

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

We’re so excited to share a sneak peek of the very first episode of our new podcast, Rituals! Every week, Christine and Em are dishing on the dark arts — all things witchy, wicked, and werewolf-y. Today, Christine tells Em about witches who conjured storms, bartered with mythical beings, and caught the ire of Danish sailors. Listen here, then follow Rituals — a Spotify Original from Parcast — for shiny new episodes every Monday!

listeners we have a very special treat for you today christine is right for any of you really into the occult this one is especially for you that actually came out weird but i think you get what i'm saying yeah we can unpack what you just said later but in the meantime we have a sneak peek of our new spotify original fromcast, Rituals. Rituals is a weekly series where we journey through mystifying stories of witchcraft, sorcery, Satanism, and more, and try to determine if the dark arts of the past impact us today. I am especially excited for the tarot episode coming up, Em. Are there any that you're looking forward to? The Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he was not only writing Sherlock Holmes in his time, but he was a paranormal investigator. So I can't wait to talk about that. It tracks. It does. This is such a fun series,

only made possible by your loyalty and support. So we really hope you enjoy it. Christine is right again. Thank you. Now here's an exclusive clip from our first episode. And if you like it, be sure to follow Rituals free and only on Spotify. M, imagine controlling the elements, creating winds, storms, and cold weather that could take down a region's entire economy. Okay, if I were to be weather, that is the goal. Just as dramatic as possible, as life-changing as possible. Coming through. Yeah, coming in hot.

The idea of weather witches may make some people scoff, but remember we still use a groundhog to predict the length of winter. Phil, I think his name, Phil? Philip. Philip. My mistake, Mr. Philip. He's a good one, except this year when he predicted winter for another six weeks.

But you know, I'm in LA. I'm good. I'm good with old Philly. Yeah, I'd rather you not complain about that. Hi, everyone, and welcome to Rituals, a Spotify original from Parcast. I'm Christine Schieffer. And I'm Em Schultz. Every week, we will explore the evolution of spiritualism and the occult through stories, practices, and the impacts on modern culture. Today, I'm going to be telling you a little bit about the weather witches. You know, we've talked about so many spooky things. We've talked about witchcraft in a lot of different ways in the last several years. Never once have I heard of weather witches.

I don't know where I've been this whole time. I don't either. I learned so much from this research and I cannot wait to tell you all about it because I think we're going to, you know, click with this one. I think we're going to we're going to vibe with it. Oh, yeah. So let's crack into it. Thanks, by the way, for taking my line on Let's Crack Into It. You know, I just, it felt right, so I just did it. Yeah, usually I feel like it feels right to you to just, you know, upstage me wherever you can. Take your content, that's exactly right.

And on that note, I'm going to tell you a little bit about weather witches. So, historically, weather witches were actually called tempestari. And that basically means someone who claimed or was accused of, important distinction, having the ability to harness the natural elements. So tempestari, kind of a fancier name. There's two I's at the end of that. Oh, my God. That's dramatic. You know, it's an old word, too.

The two I's. You don't do that anymore. That's some Latin getting involved. I'm glad you said, okay, I didn't know if you, I didn't know if it was like Latin or something else. And I didn't want to be the person to like state which language it was. Fun fact, I also don't know. So we're going to find out together on Twitter when people correct me.

Okay, true. But basically the idea is that they can control the weather with spells with rituals that kind of thing um and this reminds me i don't know if you have experience with this but as a kid growing up in the midwest um snow days were an extremely important part of the winter months during school and we would try everything we could to attempt to control the weather and create a snow day uh did you i did what was your uh ritual that you did oh yes i get it what was your like snow day ritual yeah we had a few so there was the classic um well i don't know if it's classic but it was classic in my area of like wearing your pajamas inside out flushing the toilet three times was one that was one i heard

about but like other other towns did that. We were above that. We were like, who are you? Instead, we did a little dancing around on the bed. Yep. That was a big thing. Spinning in circles, which maybe the toilet is what took care of that for you. I love that you were above flushing the toilet, but then you spun in circles on the bed.

Just interpretive dance to toilet. You know, just kind of kept going. Well, for what it's worth, my mother really still complains to this day because she was like, you were just wasting water. You were up there just like flushing the toilet over and over again. Can you imagine if you were a parent with like a wonky toilet, you know, and like if it got flushed too many times? Oh, it overflows. You did cause a storm. It was just one in your home. It caused a very local, a hyper-local storm.

But I think the logic, I mean, when I say logic, I use that term very loosely. But the logic, quote unquote, was that if everyone flushed their toilet at 9 p.m., it would back up the sewer or something. Did you have a Google alert or something for 9 p.m.? We never, it was kind of a- No, and we had a clock. Okay, I don't know what to tell you. We never had an alarm for that specific time. It was kind of a, if I'm doing it when I feel it,

you do it when you feel it. And universally, we will all build up the energy that causes snow. Yours was much more interpretive. Ours was very strict. But Celine and my friend Celine and I used to write poems. This is a thing that we did. To snow.

Listen. What? We wrote poems. Like to Santa? What happened? Hang on. It worked. Okay.

I don't know what to tell you. It worked. We wrote poems to the snow and then we danced around, interpretive and then we taped the poems to the window. Okay. This is getting really weird. It sounds like a music video. It sounds like a third grader tried to make a music video. It'd be really deep. So, okay. So it works. Congratulations. It worked. And I feel like the fact that I went to Catholic school, if they knew about this, maybe it wouldn't have flown. Because I'm going to tell you about the Catholic church's feelings about weather witches.

And I feel like if my Catholic school growing up had known I was behaving in this way, they might have not allowed me to come in anyway. So it's really resonating with me is what I'm trying to say. I see. And is what you're getting at that this thing that even we did as kids probably goes all the way back to weather witches. All the way back. And when I say all the way, I mean to the early medieval period. All the way.

All the way. So the earliest literary reference was published in the ninth century. That's how long ago this was. And Catholic Persianers were big believers back then. So Persianers believed the weather witches worked in cahoots with a mythical race, get this, of cloud dwellers called Magonians. You had me at cahoots, but I allowed the rest of that sentence. But okay. Okay. Cloud dwellers. Again, I've never heard of Magonians before. Where have I been? I know. Where have you, where have we been? So, they thought the Magonians paid the Tempestari, the weather witches, to conjure a storm and then they'd come down from the clouds and steal the corn from the fields like while the storm was happening. Sorry. So sorry. So they had to wager a deal and then jump out of clouds for corn. I mean, you heard you heard cahoots, right? They were in cahoots. Okay, but here's my, okay, there's a lot of things. First of all, very few things I would jump out of the sky for.

Corn is not even barely on that list. It's not even the number one crop I would jump out of a sky for. What are they eating up in the clouds where they're like, I got to get corn and I'll make whatever bargain I need to with witches to plummet to corn. To plummet down. There's creamed corn. There's corn on the cob. I don't know if you want me to list corn foods, but I feel like there's a lot of options. Okay, but here's some more options.

You know what crop I would do some pretty dangerous things for? Tell me. Potatoes. Okay. There's a lot more types of potatoes than there are types of corn. Now we're talking i don't know a single person who's like oh my god corn i would just absolutely skydive for corn like and also like make weird like behind the scenes deals with other groups of people

to cause i don't know what are they felonies maybe or something? Do something risky. Why am I including more people in this just for corn? Anyway. You know what? I wish I could tell you, but really their priorities must have been different from yours is all I can say. I've talked too long about this, so please continue. But I got to say I'm confused. Okay, well, I'm sorry to tell you, but this was the many, many centuries ago.

And corn, I guess, was a hot commodity. A hot commodity. Yeah. So the Magonians would pay the weather witches to conjure a storm. And then they would come down, take the corn. All right. The tempest story would be paid. It's like a win-win.

And this is how the parishioners explained extreme weather that would wipe out their crops. Oh. Yeah. So it's sort of like explaining what had happened. And by that, I mean throwing the blame elsewhere. The Catholic Church, though, said no way. They were like, witches are not real. Humans don't have powers like this.

And they definitely cannot influence the weather. Okay. Sorry. Again, I don't mean to keep interjecting here. However, like the Catholic Church is like, we believe a lot of stuff. The corn thing is a no-go. Too far. That's 100%.

You've gone too far. No, no, no. No. So this is a good point because in the ninth century, there was this letter. This is one of my favorite parts of this research is that there's this archbishop of Leon called Agobard. And he wrote a letter explaining like how silly this idea was that people could control the weather.

And his letter was called against the foolishish Opinion of the Masses about Hail and Thunder. Oh, I know. Dramatic, right? Yeah, very. Which is why I'm 100% on board. Yeah. So they were like, come on, everybody, stop being so foolish. There's no witches.

There's humans can't control the weather. Even though they stepped in and wrote this awesome letter, they could not stop the belief in the people. And it just grew stronger and stronger. People kept throwing blame. And by the mid 13th century, it was widely accepted that witches existed and were capable of causing physical harm to others and obviously control natural forces, i.e. the weather. So, of course, along with the acceptance came blame. And then we go into that fun part of history called witch trials. I don't know what to say from there, except, oh gosh. Okay. Except classic. Yep.

Coming up, we'll dig deeper into the stormy history of weather witches and the trials and executions that lasted for generations. Thanks for listening. Ready to hear the rest? Follow Rituals free and only on Spotify to finish this episode and catch new ones. We're cracking into new topics every Monday. See you there.