Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Ep. 26: Requiem series (2018)



 6.0/7.0
 
The dark half of the year is upon us, at least for those of us who live in the northern hemisphere and we wanted to usher it in with a review episode that embodied the mystery, magic and Gothic deliciousness of the season.  We chose the 2018 BBC series Requiem which is currently streaming on Netflix because it had an abundance of these elements as well as some truly wonderful depictions of spirits both local and otherworldly.  The series takes place in beautiful Wales, a land steeped in bewitching Celtic culture and lore which in our opinion is the perfect setting for this story.

For this special Samhain episode, I am joined by my former co-host Sabrina Khan for a fun exploration of some of the major paranormal themes and magical elements of Requiem!  We hope you tune in and enjoy the episode as much as we had fun creating it for you.  We also announce the winner of the free email tarot reading so stay tuned for that at the end of the episode!  As always, we have a few extras for you in these show notes.

Sunday, September 23, 2018

Ep. 25: The Fortune Teller, part 2


 


3.0/7.0



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Hello and welcome back!  Today, I bring you part 2 of The Fortune Teller review and my continued journey through tarot history!

As promised, I have a few further recommendations for tarot history sources:

"The Esoteric Tarot: Ancient Sources Rediscovered in Hermeticism and Cabalah" by Ronald Decker

"A History of Occult Tarot 1870-1970" by Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett.

"A Wicked Pack of Cards: The Origins of the Occult Tarot" by Ronald Decker, Thierry DePaulis and Michael Dummett.

"A History of Games Played with the Tarot Pack" by Michael Dummett and John McCleod.

"The Tarot: History, Mystery and Lore" by Cynthia Giles.

"Mystical Origins of the Tarot: From Ancient Roots to Modern Usage" by Paul Huson.

Thursday, September 6, 2018

Ep. 24: The Fortune Teller, Part 1


 
Image result for the fortune teller womack





Hello all and welcome to episode 24 of The Wytch Files!  This month I have a review of the novel The Fortune Teller written by Gwendolyn Womack.  The novel focuses on an ancient tarot deck and the ancient family of female seers who use the deck for prophecy.  I thought it would be interesting and fun to include a brief history of the tarot along with the review because I'm a nerd for all things divination.  The episode as a whole is very long so I have split it up into two parts for easier listening.  This is part 1 of the episode and part 2 should be up in a few short weeks (maybe sooner) as episode 25.

In the episode, I mention three Visconti group tarot decks and beautiful reproductions of these decks can be purchased today.  U.S. Games Systems, Inc. has beautiful reproductions of the Visconti-Sforza tarot and the Cary-Yale Visconti deck which you can purchase directly from them, at a local occult/card shop or on Amazon.  If you are on a budget and would like to get a cheaper but still beautiful version of the Visconti-Sforza or if you just need a study deck, I recommend The Golden Tarot by Mary Packard which also comes with a book that provides a bit of historical background.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Viscontisforzatarot.jpg
Cards from Visconti-Sforza tarot deck
Maestro Osvaldo Menegazzi, the artistic powerhouse behind the tarot shop Il Meneghello in Milan, Italy, has created gorgeous, hand-made, quality reproductions of both the Visconti-Sforza and the Cary-Yale Visconti (a/k/a Visconti Di Modrone).  These are beautiful, quality limited editions with small print runs which are more expensive.  If you are in the U.S.A., you can purchase the decks (provided they are not sold out) from CollecTarot & Books which sells unique and vintage tarot cards.  They are located in Colorado so it is a great way for U.S. customers who want to purchase Il Meneghello decks to save on shipping.  If you are located in Europe, a great site to purchase Il Meneghello decks is at Tarot BG.

Saturday, April 7, 2018

Ep. 23: End of Winter Favorites




Hello there my lovelies, it's been a while since the last episode of The Wytch Files but the show is back!  This time around I've decided to change it up a bit and do a favorites show to celebrate the end of winter and hopefully, finally, marshal in some spring-like weather.  You can listen to the episode on iTunes, Stitcher and iHeart Radio or you can listen directly by clicking the episode player at the top of this post.  I hope you find at least one new cool piece of media to check out!

Once you listen to the episode, be sure to return here and watch the video playlist for the episode and check out where you can find some of these wonderful artists and artistic projects.

Friday, January 5, 2018

Ep. 22: The Wailing (2016)






Hello to all you lovely souls and welcome back to The Wytch Files.  In episode 22, I take an in-depth look at the South Korean movie "Goksung" or "The Wailing" in English directed by Hong-jin Na.  The movie was released on May 12, 2016 and stars Do-wan Kwak, Jung-min Hwang, Jun Kunimura, Chun Woo-hee and Hwan-hee Kim.

The director Hong-jin Na was interviewed for "The Playlist" about the movie in 2016.  He was also interviewed at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016 and by Screenanarchy when the movie was released so please check the interviews out.

Korean shamanism figures heavily in this film so I spend a lot of time in the episode discussing it.  I wanted to provide you with a few articles for further reading if you are interested.  The training process of the Mudang or Korean shaman is discussed in this article by Jongsung Yang.  This article by Keith Howard discusses the use of paper for creation of ritual symbols for a type of Korean gut (ritual).  A Chaesu gut, a ritual to increase prosperity and good fortune is described in this article by John A. Grim.  In this dissertation by Jinseok Seo, the role of shamanism in Korean society is discussed. Lastly, here is another article by Nami Lee and Eun Young Kim about the Sitkimgut ritual, a ritual for transforming death and sickness into rebirth and integration.