Join us on Dine with the Divine features an interview with Tudor Beth, a hereditary witch, discussing her journey with magic and its ties to folklore and traditions. The conversation delves into medieval magic, superstitions, and beliefs passed down through generations. Additionally, it includes a segment on lunar magic, featuring the story of the goddess Selene, who is associated with the moon and various mystical legends.
0:00- Interview with Tutorbeth
20:54-Dish of the Week: Different meals for different moon phases
24:33- Tea Time: Medieval magic
39:23: Selene, the Moon
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Tutorbeth
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[00:00:00] Ashley: Okay, hello, everybody. And welcome to Dine with the Divine. I'm your host, Ashley, and together we'll be exploring the magical, the mystical and everything in between. So on today's episode, we're going to talk all about medieval magic and a goddess who May have been keeping somebody pressed her. So I hope everyone is having a great week And if not, I hope it gets better soon.
[00:00:21] Today. We have a fantastic guest as usual today We have Tudor Beth and Tudor Beth is a hereditary witch and has been writing about magic for over 30 years Her latest work is the hedge which is the hedge which is Little Book of Lunar Magic. And is the fourth in this series.
[00:00:39] Hi Tudor Beth, how are you today? Hi
[00:00:42] Tutorbeth: Ashley, I'm good, thank you. How
[00:00:44] Ashley: are you? I'm doing okay. As I usually start off asking people is how did your journey with magic begin?
[00:00:54] Tutorbeth: Primarily because my father and his family [00:01:00] actually pretty much witches. I we use that term a lot now, but I think a lot of it has got to do with folklore, which really ties in nicely with your your episodes today about medieval magic and things, because it really is.
[00:01:15] just folklore, it's traditions and superstitions and different faiths and beliefs that have just been passed down from family to family member. And and like I say I got mine from my father who got his from his grandmother because he was brought up during the war years with his grandmother as many children were sent out of London during the Blitz.
[00:01:39] Um, and, and, instead of going to like Narnia through the wardrobe and stuff, like
[00:01:44] Ashley: we
[00:01:47] Tutorbeth: actually live there, basically.
[00:01:52] He went to live with his grandma who was called Flora whose nickname was called Dolly. And she had a little small holding [00:02:00] and. She was amazing for from all accounts. She really was every inch a hedge, which because she lived really off the line. She knew every herb every plant, every, everything that you could eat traditions, making candles.
[00:02:17] Absolutely. everything which was a way of life full of stupid superstitions and beliefs. And then, passed it on to my father who then passed it on to me. So I've always it's just been around the family. So it's just been there. And then as I've gone on throughout my life and I've gone to university and learned about my faith and different faiths and different religions I, I realized it's like, Oh crikey, we really were a bunch of witches basically.
[00:02:50] We didn't exactly go with the status quo, we weren't exactly practicing Christians at one point, we really were the on the [00:03:00] fringes of society, shall we say.
[00:03:05] Ashley: I love that. I love anybody who is like, wants to keep traditions alive. I just think that's, Amazing and everybody like I know everybody's not interested in doing that but I just think it's so cool when someone is like someone like you're great grandma was just like so I know and I think it's so cool because okay This is my thing people even back in your great grandmother's day like, let's say early 1900s People just learn stuff and they just knew a lot of the time all these people with all this knowledge It was just in their heads.
[00:03:40] They didn't write it down and there's so many people who come from cultures where the history is oral so literally the people in the town or wherever in that community had to just memorize okay this herb is for this and if This person's having a headache. They take this [00:04:00] and you boil it this way and you boil it for this long And if this woman's giving birth, but her baby's not coming out We got to do like people just knew stuff.
[00:04:08] I think that's so awesome that your great grandmother was just walking around with all this knowledge in her head like she just Lived off the land and was just like yep This is for this is for that like it's so I just love that people and I guess people's a lot of the arguments sometimes is back then people had time I'm, like we have time.
[00:04:27] We just act like we don't like We could probably do it if we wanted to I think that's fascinating that she could just Know that sort of thing and then pass it down to her grandson who then passed it down to you. I just think that's so beautiful and then whoever she got it from passed it down to her like so you literally are carrying like hundreds of years of knowledge within your brain.
[00:04:51] And I think that's amazing and beautiful.
[00:04:53] Tutorbeth: Yes. Yeah. And you said something about midwives and yes, they were all midwives. She was a midwife. My grandmother was a [00:05:00] midwife. My mother was a midwife. They would have so much knowledge, female medical knowledge, that the male medical industry now is just poo pooed and go no.
[00:05:14] And it's going to come back to bite them basically. But yeah, they had so much knowledge for female knowledge. What herb do you need to take if you've got water retention, these kinds of things. If you're baby step, what can you start drinking?
[00:05:27] The raspberry tea leaves and you take this, you take that. And now me as being. a crone going through like the menopause. I remember the things that she told me that you need this. And as a young person, a young woman, you don't really listen to it. And now I'm thinking, Oh my goodness.
[00:05:45] Yes. I should have listened to it
[00:05:48] Ashley: before.
[00:05:53] Tutorbeth: It's when you get, the hot flushes, you need to drink this. Oh, I don't need that. [00:06:00] Yeah, right.
[00:06:04] Ashley: Like a memory day comes. Yeah, that's so Oh my gosh, I love that. And you were right. It's women. So it's so interesting that herbalism, folk magic, like Folk medicine is usually passed down towards women and then.
[00:06:21] The fact that so many times throughout history, it's been used against us, it's like you're a witch because you cured this and I, I always talk about Outlander, once again, I'm going to talk about it on Outlander, Claire, one of the main characters in the beginning, like the very beginning of the series, she helps cure this boy of a fever.
[00:06:40] Claire is from the future. So she knows some stuff. But anyway, Of course they put her, like, they say she's a witch, obviously, because how did she cure this kid of this issue? And she's like, no, it was just because I know this herb is good for it. And they're like, no, you must be a witch. Now you must die.
[00:06:57] It's like, what? [00:07:00] Yeah. It's crazy.
[00:07:02] Tutorbeth: Absolutely. Absolutely. That's the thing. And when you look at the witchcraft trials or the witch those that have been condemned as witches and you look at these women, they follow a pattern of being very individual. They may be on their own.
[00:07:15] They may be even land owners. They may. own a little small holding or something. They could be very or from a very poor part of town but very knowledgeable in different ways. And it's, just by pot luck that maybe somebody that they were treating went and died. And of course, yes, that eradicates all the years of helping everybody.
[00:07:38] That, and there you go, they're being strung up or being thrown in the pond. We had it in England. We tend to throw them in the pond and, Oh, if they drown, they were innocent. And it's like, Hey.[00:08:00]
[00:08:02] God, give us a break.
[00:08:07] Ashley: I always thought that was the craziest thing. Like, if she drowns, she wasn't a witch. But if she comes back up, she's definitely a witch. I'm like, so either way. You're just gonna kill this lady. Just tell her that. Like, let's forget all of it.
[00:08:20] Just tell her you're gonna murder her. Because that's what's happening here. You just screwed either
[00:08:25] Tutorbeth: way. It's like, oh my god, if I sing to the bottom, I'm
[00:08:29] Ashley: gonna die. I know, good grief. I love these poor people. Oh my gosh Oh god, that was funny. Okay wanted to ask you obviously, people who are listening to this don't realize that we had recorded before, and one thing that I learned about you that I thought was so cool was that you, I think you have, you are either in the process of getting a degree or you've gotten a degree by now in, like, medieval studies, correct?
[00:08:55] Tutorbeth: Yes, I have a master's in medieval studies and I am [00:09:00] now doing a PhD in medieval studies. Wow.
[00:09:03] Ashley: Yeah, I love that. Okay, so let's ask you. Who is your favorite, like, person or favorite incidence of medieval times that you can think of?
[00:09:18] Tutorbeth: I like the changing of times. For example, when we're moving from the classical period, such as the Roman period, up into the Middle Ages, which is usually around about the 600s.
[00:09:30] So it's talking about, the 500s, 600s, the sixth century, basically. And I like that it's like the turning of society and we're moving from one epoch, one era into another. And you see all of these things that are happening in society, which is happening now. The disintegration of there's no law, there's no education, there's no health, there's no real justice for anybody.
[00:09:58] The wealth get. [00:10:00] richer support, get poorer. There's just like nothing works in society. The critical base and superstructure of society is completely crumbling all around them. And then there's this process that's taken place where there's this new emergence of a new way of doing things.
[00:10:17] So We are coming into the Middle Ages. I don't know what kind of age we're coming into worrying, but we're kind, we're leaving maybe that capitalist, postmodernist era and we're going into something else. Maybe it is globalism, I don't know, but. It's worrying what we're going into, but everything that was happening way back in, 600s, 500, 600s the turning of the wheel, as I call it the the other turning of the wheel, the turning of the earth and human ages.
[00:10:49] That's the interesting thing that I like most of all. And there's so many different people around and you think, oh wow, there's these certain people that kind of [00:11:00] had a grasp on things so there's Gregory the Great. He had a handle on things. Charlemagne and people like that could see things in advance and we're preparing things and, where they were the captain of the ships, basically, and, that's great.
[00:11:15] We don't have anybody like that. We've got no captain of the ship. I don't know about you guys in the States, but we've got nobody. We've got no one to steer us into the right direction. We're
[00:11:25] Ashley: like, Oh, my God. If you think that you guys are having a rough time. Don't worry. It's probably rainbows and sunshine over there compared to the states.
[00:11:38] We're falling apart over here. Oh my god, we're all screwed. Oh my god. Like, oh my god, sometimes, I hear people, I watch the news or whatever, and people in Europe and the UK, and it's so funny, Anybody in Europe or the UK is like, Oh, complaining about what's going on in government or fight or their finances or the economy.
[00:11:59] [00:12:00] And then us Americans are like, we're so jealous of you guys. We're like, everything just seems so much more organized over there. It's utter chaos over here. Oh,
[00:12:10] Tutorbeth: it's utter chaos. Oh, right. Over here it's just organized chaos. Yeah!
[00:12:19] Ashley: Pretty much it's just I know, we're like, oh I know, we're like We hear, like, British people complain about, like, the NHS, and we're like, you guys, at least you have something. Yeah, that's true. We're suffering. Yeah,
[00:12:38] Tutorbeth: that's
[00:12:38] Ashley: true, that's
[00:12:40] Tutorbeth: true. We can still get prescriptions that are free. Yeah. We'll have things like that because people who've got like severe illnesses like diabetes and stuff and they need them regular medication.
[00:12:51] It must be absolutely extortionate in America the amount of money for prescriptions and medications that [00:13:00] just to keep them alive to keep you going. Whereas here, yeah. Okay. We still, it's still free. Ish. Yes.
[00:13:07] Ashley: They're
[00:13:08] Tutorbeth: bringing it. Literally. Yeah, they're bringing in about, I think, paying for your own blood tests, they're bringing that in, and so we're complaining about that.
[00:13:17] Ashley: Oh, you guys are so cute.
[00:13:24] You guys are adorable. I got blood work done a few months ago, and I got like, my insurance paid for a good chunk of it, but. Yeah. I still had to pay. So the bill actually what I like the whole bill was like a thousand dollars for some blood work. Yeah. And it wasn't like, it was a lot of tests, but it was also like not crazy specific stuff.
[00:13:50] So the thousand dollars and my insurance paid most of it. I still owed 180. I don't know what that is in pounds, maybe like a hundred and [00:14:00] fifty pounds or something. Yeah, but like, what? I was like, why am I paying these people to help me if it's still a lot of money. It was crazy.
[00:14:09] And it, I'm not, you're saying. The one interesting thing that I am not like you, I do not have a degree in any middle age stuff, but I do like to read about the middle ages because it's weird because to me it's they call it, it's, I don't know if they still say the dark ages, but they would say the dark ages before.
[00:14:31] It's the thing was, there wasn't a lot going on, but there was so much going on, it's very weird. I think they say there wasn't a lot, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but to me it sounds like they say, there wasn't a lot going on because, in terms of like advancements in techno, at least in the Western world, but there was a lot going on because all these individual tribes and groups of people were just trying to figure out What do we do now? And they're also like [00:15:00] maybe I'll take over this place. Maybe we should combine with this group. Actually, maybe we'll go over here.
[00:15:04] Everybody was just moving a lot. There was that, like, everyone seemed to be moving all the time. And then you got people like Charlemagne, who, and like, all these other leaders who were like, you know what we're gonna do? Let's make the Bible. So like, all these big things were happening, but also everybody was just like restless.
[00:15:23] It was such a weird. Time, but it's also really interesting. All those, like you said, all these people who actually could see what was going to happen and had a handle on it. And we're like, we need to organize ourselves because the future is coming and shit's going to be different. Yeah. And we don't have the Roman government to keep a handle on us.
[00:15:44] So we've all got to get our ducks in a row now because we can't be out here just killing each other all the time. We have to like organize and shit.
[00:15:51] Tutorbeth: Yeah, they did. They did. They really did. When the Romans started, the empire was crumbling and the, it was like, 50 years of it gradually decaying.
[00:15:59] [00:16:00] Europe was like putting things in place. So I getting legal things in place. So there's a lot of legal documents legislation and just getting everything in order. And that's the thing with the Middle Ages. Yes, they still, a medievalist will cringe when anybody uses the term dark ages, because what you have to think about is that it is a thousand years of history.
[00:16:22] A Middle Ages is a thousand years. It's from basically 450 to 1450. And if you look at what was happening in 450 and then you compare society in 1450, you think, Oh my God, they really did. They did do a lot. Every single aspect, the culture, art design, what clothes, food, the wheel, the movement, the plow, everything.
[00:16:49] So many things that happened in every single area of life and society. It's, maybe not good because I go back and I think about how Romans were so [00:17:00] clean. They really were clean, washing and bathing and stuff like that. And you get to the middle ages and you're like, Oh, we might have a bath a year.
[00:17:08] Maybe the hygiene went down a bit. Who knows? You
[00:17:13] Ashley: know what I read? Yeah. You know what I read the other day. So I was reading about. And I don't remember what year it is. I think it was like in the like ten hundred so like But I believe it's called st. Brice day it was like a day where the English killed a whole bunch of quote unquote Danes, but Viking people.
[00:17:33] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But they were talking about tensions leading up to that. They're talking about how, and obviously, they say Danes, but Danes refers to they don't know if they were actually Danish, they could have been, they were, there was like a term that people use for any Norseman, right?
[00:17:49] So they were talking about how, one of the issues, one of the tensions that was in middle ages england at the time was that like The Danes had been there so much that a lot of them had settled [00:18:00] there and now they were like intermarrying.
[00:18:03] And a lot of the English women preferred the Danes because they washed like once a week and they like wore perfume and they braided their hair. It became like a huge problem. Everybody was like, we have to get rid of them because they won't Marry British men anymore. And they're like, yeah, the women are like, yeah, because you guys smell and these guys over here They wash themselves at least once a week.
[00:18:30] Their hair is pretty and they use perfume. Like why wouldn't we? They were like now we really got to get rid of these people They're like for the sake of the children now we have to get rid of these stains they're ruining everything So funny to me. Exactly.
[00:18:51] Tutorbeth: Exactly. Yeah. I love it. My cousins are Danish.
[00:18:55] We're still called Danes, but yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. We don't change. [00:19:00]
[00:19:00] Ashley: We don't change. I know. We still live in the middle ages. I'm just like imagining I love to play out scenes in my head. So I imagine like some girl, like she's Okay, she goes to like her local market and she's buying apples, right?
[00:19:15] and there's the guy who sells apples to her is like really into her and he's thinking I Really want to talk to this girl Like I really gonna try to talk to her dad and see if he'll let me marry her and she likes him But not like that. She just thinks he's a nice Apple salesman.
[00:19:28] So then one day this hot Dane who smells like roses and he has six braids in his hair walks through the market And she's like, I'm in love. I'm marrying this guy. Because look, a 14 year old in the year 1000 is the same as a 14 year old in the year 2024. They're hormones are raging.
[00:19:52] So she sees this 6, I'm just saying he's tall, maybe he wasn't, but in my head, he's 6 feet tall, he's [00:20:00] gorgeous, he has blue eyes, he has dark hair, and it's braided, and he smells like roses. Of course she's going for that guy instead of the Apple salesman. Can you blame her? Come on! Definitely. Go with that hot date!
[00:20:14] I know! Absolutely, come on, of course! The British government had the audacity to get mad about that. Calm down!
[00:20:24] Tutorbeth: Definitely an alternative take on it. I've never thought of it that way, but I will
[00:20:30] Ashley: very soon, too. These are the things I come up with when I'm in the shower. I'm like, you know what? I bet it played out just like this.
[00:20:39] Tutorbeth: We should write those things down. We should really write those
[00:20:42] Ashley: things down. Course. Really cool. I probably, I can make up a story about just justify anything because that's, I've just always been like that. Fuck God. So anyway, after that story time, we're gonna go to our Dish of the week. So we have an article here.[00:21:00]
[00:21:00] about eating during different moon phases because we're associating this with Tudor Beth's latest book. So in this, everybody's different, but in this particular article, this woman associates different goddesses with the different moon phases and then talks about what she would eat or drink during the moon phases.
[00:21:20] So I thought it was interesting. So for her new moon phases, she has a prayer and she prays to the goddess Hecate for the new moon to help with her cleansing of her body And I'm gonna post it on the show notes. Everybody can read the prayers that she has on here But she makes these dark moon herbal teas For a morning detox, she uses dandelion leaves and nettle, which is like super healthy.
[00:21:50] I love that. Dandelions are so good for everything and every spring I'm like, I'm gonna get all, I have tons of dandelions just growing in my yard and I don't use pesticides or anything. [00:22:00] I was like, oh i'm just gonna pick them all and then I don't like so this year i'm gonna do it like because Every year I say it and i've been living in this house for four years.
[00:22:08] I haven't done it But they're so good for everything. You can put the leaves in the salad You can make dandelion mead you can make dandelion honey If you have allergies, it's really good to help like The like the pollen and stuff in it helps you be desensitized to pollen, like it helps you with that.
[00:22:27] Okay, so also you can make a refreshing afternoon tea brew with mint leaves or ginger. Ooh, I like ginger tea a lot. And then for evening you can use mania, which I've never heard of, but it brings a lovely glow to your teach, cheeks. Or you can use mugwort tea, which helps you enhance dreams. I could do a mugwort tea, but I usually do it like at night before sleep because it can make me a little, like, woozy.
[00:22:51] It's not like a drug, but it can get you, it can get you there, guys. So just be careful with your mugwort tea. Oof. Okay, so then for the Waxing [00:23:00] Moon this particular article, she has a prayer to Bridget to help less with food stores and keep them healthy and have gentle nourishment. So for the Waxing Moon, she makes a spring green salad with soaked seeds that arugula, kale.
[00:23:20] Or other forage greens like dandelion leaves like we talked before and then for the seed she's almond pumpkin seeds sunflowers hemp seeds and Optional you could use lemon salt and some dried nettle seeds and then for the full moon the full moon makes us nice and full she Is doing a prayer to the goddess Inanna The Sumerian goddess and she talks about dark chocolate.
[00:23:45] Okay. That's nice So she makes a little like whipped dark chocolate situation 70 percent dark chocolate one cup of whipping cream and then some sugar or other sweetener and then for the waning moon We're going to the goddess and I'm never saying this, [00:24:00] right? I just apologize Sir, Sirdwin? Sirdwin?
[00:24:03] Probably not, right? Sorry, everybody. And this is the gods of transformation and helping to discard what no longer needs to be. And for that, making a vegetable broth. Okay, thank you to this woman, Diane Peruzzo, whose blog I'm reading from. Thank you, ma'am. That was delightful. Very nice. Very nice, yes. Okay, so now we're going to do our tea time.
[00:24:33] So we again, since our last conversation, I was like, Oh, I want us to learn a little bit about what magic was like, in like medieval times. So this is a little farther forward, but why not? Medieval times, everybody in Europe, they were trying to make everybody Christian, the Pope and all that.
[00:24:49] This is like before the Reformation. So everybody was like, Catholic pretty Catholic. And this is before Henry VIII came up and was like, I need to get [00:25:00] divorced. And then he did that whole situation. So back then, practices such as divination and interpreting omens and sorcery and charms, that was all forbidden by Mosaic law.
[00:25:12] So like by Jewish law, it was all forbidden. And then also biblical historians said no, we cannot do that either. It's not okay. You can, in the New Testament, we're saying it's not okay. By this time, the Bible was not even that old, so people were still studying all the time, trying to find everything.
[00:25:31] But, Christian theologians believe that there were multiple different forms of magic. They, one of them was divination. And somebody named Isidore of Seville produced a catalog of things that he thought were mag magical. And he divided them into four elements. So he said geomancy, like reading.
[00:25:54] Reading The Ground, I think. I'm sorry, I'm probably not saying that right, but Geomancy. [00:26:00] Hydromancy, Divination with Water, Aromancy, Divination with Air, and Pyromancy, Divination with Fire. So he said that, and also it was not cool to observe natural phenomena such as the flight of birds or astrology.
[00:26:16] Excuse me. He also said that when people used Magical objects and place them on people that was also magic and you shouldn't do that either and they also but it's really interesting because all These things were illegal, but there was tons of people doing all sorts of magic. I Wanted to go really deep into alchemy, but I realized once I started we don't have that kind of time So I was like that's for another time because alchemy is a whole thing And I don't even understand it.
[00:26:43] So I was like, I'm gonna need days to figure that out. So anyway, a lot of people are trying to do alchemy at this time. The most basic definition I can give you of that is turning elements usually into gold. So they would take like any kind of metal and be like, we want to basically, [00:27:00] it was like they were trying to do chemistry, but it ended up being magic.
[00:27:03] And they were trying to do it. They're trying to take like any metal and turn it to gold. Then also we have In Medieval Europe, people saw that in the Old Testament, they used Solomon as a magical figure and they made all these grimoires and these magical books claiming that those books were written by Solomon, most notably the King the Key of Solomon.
[00:27:26] So we talked about Solomon in a prior episode and how people used a lot of his writings or a, what is supposedly his writings, and a lot of the lore about Solomon. To talk about how to do these big, like, ceremonial magic things, like controlling other demons and controlling gods and all these big things.
[00:27:48] In medieval Europe, also, in early medieval Europe, magia was a term of condemnation. So if you mention that, it was like, no go for you. You're about to get your head cut [00:28:00] off. Also and also, here we go. In medieval Europe, Christians often suspected of Muslims and Jews of engaging in medieval practices.
[00:28:09] In certain cases, one of these medieval practices, they would say that Jewish people sacrifice Christian children. But that was really just racism. It wasn't like they were doing that. It was just racism. They just weren't an excuse. to be racist. They also, a lot of Christian groups would accuse each other.
[00:28:27] And like, because back then, just as now, I think they say there's like almost 200, 000 different types of Christianity. Back then, Their Christianity was still new ish. So there was a lot of different interpretations of it still and they would fight each other about who was right. This was a big problem.
[00:28:48] They would also use magic to like, fight against each other. Be like, oh this group is wrong because they do magic. This happened to one group called the Hussites. They were a [00:29:00] proto Protestant group from the Czech Republic who was run by this guy named Jan Haas. Jan Haas really believed that every there should be freedom of preaching, there should be communion for everybody, and that church clergy should live in poverty and they shouldn't have excess, like he believed that the Catholic church did at the time.
[00:29:24] So because he had all these like, really like wild beliefs, people thought he was a witch and they would call people who followed him a witch and magicians and all that kind of stuff. Okay, so then medieval Europe also saw the term mouth. Malficom applied to forms of magics that were conducted with the intention of causing harm.
[00:29:46] And then later in the Middle Ages saw the word for practitioners oh, there, there became now, sorry. They also had all these different words for different practitioners. So in different languages, there were different [00:30:00] words for like who they thought were bad magicians. And I'll get more into that in a second.
[00:30:05] But we have sorcery. So sorcery, I can't speak French. Sorcery in French hexi in German, strega in Italian, and bruja in Spanish. And the English term for malevolent practitioners of magic, came from the was the word witch, which derived from the old English term wiccay. Magic was a major component and supported Contribution to the belief and practice of spiritual and healing practices.
[00:30:36] When earlier Tudor Beth was talking about her great grandmother, that was sometimes considered magic. But, It was sometimes fine. So it's really weird. I was reading all about this. Basically, if somebody did like healing magic, and it could be as simple as herbalism, like just using herbs, it was considered [00:31:00] magic, but it was fine.
[00:31:01] A lot of time because they'd be like basically if you're praying to a christian god while you do It's not magic. But if you do it and you say something that we don't like it's magic So you had to be really careful about what you were doing back then. It wasn't safe. At all. So There was a lot of misinterpretations of things being like there's a lot of misinterpretations of magical things because People back then were made to be so afraid of like hell So everybody was so frightened of hell that anything that was like not completely Christian They had to then question because everybody's like, oh if you do this, you're going to hell and that was the church's doing of making Everybody really scared.
[00:31:46] In a medieval Jewish view, there was a separation between mystical and magical elements of the Kabbalah. So everybody probably at this point knows the Kabbalah is and they divided it into different sections. So there was like the theological Kabbalah [00:32:00] and this is like what people studied and then there was a meditative the philurgic, I can never say that word either, I'm so sorry, practice of Kabbalah.
[00:32:07] And those people were considered like the magical people. But even though that they didn't really like magic, there was this feeling that a lot of kings, when kings became kings, when there's a coronation, they were seen as gaining this divine or holy light. So then they themselves, Had like sacred magic and they would say that the king, you pick any king is like Charlemagne or any of the big ones, right?
[00:32:34] William the conquer, once they became king that they got this divine supernatural magic. So it's interesting how they didn't believe in magic and didn't want it, but they used to say that these people now were like special 'cause they had magic. Okay. They used to use a lot of different tools.
[00:32:51] They would use instruments such as magical amulets, talismans, potions. They would use specific chants and dances and prayers, and [00:33:00] this is all in medieval Europe. There was an idea that sometimes that these magical things were Brought by the devil like this was a big thing that if people did certain chants or certain dances They would think ooh, this is a little this is a little too spicy This must be the devil.
[00:33:20] So you have to keep your spiciness down too. It had to be real plain Because if you dance too much or you said a little bit too much Latin They assumed it was the devil also a lot of people couldn't read at this point. So if they said something a little too Like if they said something in latin if you were like a regular let's pick any country in europe at this point Let's pick we're let's go to england, right?
[00:33:46] We pick anywhere in england and somebody a countryside person knows a little bit of latin They assume the devil taught them that because that person was a regular person. They probably didn't go to school So they're like, oh this was the [00:34:00] devil who taught you this so you have to be real careful about what you were saying It's crazy.
[00:34:04] Let's see. What else we have to talk about there was a book called the Sifir Harzim, which was a Jewish magical text that was very popular at this time that was supposedly given to Noah by the angel Razel and passed down through biblical history until it ended up with Solomon who then used it to Used it for magical purposes.
[00:34:30] So there was a lot of Jewish mysticism that was also being studied at the time by medieval magicians. And then in 1456 there was a seven ate prohibit or the es magica or that was per prohibited by Canon law. And this was written by this guy named Johannes Harb Lib. And there's seven full partition reflecting the arts that he was like, these are no go anymore guys.
[00:34:57] There was Nigromancy, which was black and [00:35:00] demonic magic, Geomancy, Hydromancy, Aromancy, Pyromancy, Chiromancy, which was palm reading, and Scalpomancy, which was reading of the shoulder blades, which I was like, oh, interesting. So he, so by 1456, he's like, these are an absolutely no go, everybody stop doing magic.
[00:35:18] Absolutely not. But guess what? Everyone kept doing it. The next the last couple things that I'll talk about were the kind of popular forms of quote unquote magic at the time. Astrology was really popular. This was really loose. It wasn't practiced the same way people practice it today. There was presence of astrology in the Middle Ages that were recorded on the walls of San Minuto al Monte Basilica in Florence, Italy.
[00:35:44] The art on the wall there actually depicts all of the zodiac symbols. People practiced magic and they used to use the zodiac symbols in considering that they thought the zodiac symbols were Associated with different body parts. So they thought sometimes they could use [00:36:00] the Astrology to like help heal people then there was your average divination and divination back then was a little different We don't know too much about it.
[00:36:10] But a lot of scrying was done. So looking into mirrors looking into water And then yeah, Tarot came along in like, the 14 1500s, but it wasn't until like, really like the 16, I think the 16 or 1700s, it became really popular in Europe. People use charms a lot. And they would use blessings and prayers and they would maybe put them in little bags almost like the way people use mojo bags and they would attach it to themselves.
[00:36:39] They would maybe take little figures of saints or Christ or cross and they attach it to the same way people do now They would attach it to themselves. They would be blessed by whomever and they would carry it around or they would give it to People in their family who were sick or something else was going wrong with them they would use [00:37:00] them in exorcisms, and they would have these prayers that they would say over people but that wasn't considered magic, even though it was basically magic.
[00:37:12] And then Magical medicine, which was basically people using all different kinds of herbs. So we might just call it herbalism, but then they called it medicine because they would use the herbs and then say specific prayers or again use talismans or amulets to bless a person while they were using the herbs.
[00:37:34] And then their last one was what they call quote unquote sorcery. And this was literally what they were divided into white or black magic. So they said if the healer was trying to heal you, it was white magic. And if there were, and if something went wrong, the person could easily be accused of black magic.
[00:37:52] So if you went to a quote unquote healer, and they gave you some herbs and It didn't work and [00:38:00] you died their family your family may say oh, it was definitely black magic because he died But the case could have just been that you were just gonna die anyway, but yeah, so that was Some medieval magic and then the last thing I'll mention is this book called The Lack Nougat was a collection of miscellaneous anglo saxon medical texts and prayers and it was mainly written in Old English and Latin And this was a book they came upon, I don't know what year, but I think it was actually not too long ago, maybe 100 or 200 years ago, somebody actually found this book.
[00:38:32] And there's a bunch of different prayers in it. Oh, he found it in the 1800s. This guy named Oswald Cockney. And he compiled it. He said that the book was probably written in the late 10th or 11th century and there was a lot of herbal remedies and there was a lot of different prayers in the book. I'll tell you one.
[00:38:51] Like, there's a prayer that you can say over black ulcers, which sounds terrible. I'm so sorry you had black ulcers, whoever that was. There's different prayers you, and [00:39:00] most of them are like Christian prayers or praying about praying to prophets or God or Christ. It's interesting. But and there's just certain rituals that you do with it.
[00:39:10] Yeah, that's a little bit about medieval magic. It was there. It was always outlawed, but everyone was still doing it That's all you really need to know about it. Ooh, this is a lot to say, but that's some of your quick and dirty manual to medieval magic. Okay, so our last part of this show is our story time. First story time today, since we were talking about lunar magic before, we're going to go back to talking about lunar magic.
[00:39:34] We're going to talk about the goddess Selene. I always like that name, and it always makes me think of Selena, the singer. R. I. P. Selena. Selene means light, brightness, or gleam. And Selene was a Greek goddess, so she is literally the moon, right? So she's also described as one of the deathless goddesses.
[00:39:57] Or go and gods. She is like [00:40:00] Nyx. We talked about Nyx before. Deathless. She cannot die because she is the moon. Nyx is the night. She's not the goddess of the night. She's the night. Selene is not the goddess of the moon. She's the moon. She's also known as Mene, which is which also means like month or menstruation.
[00:40:20] She is a titan and her parents were Hyperon and Thea and her brother is Helios Which is the sun and her sister is eos the dawn. Wow. My jersey accent is coming out really strong right now. Sorry I was like she's the dawn. Oh my god. Okay so She bathes in the ocean before riding into the sky every night.
[00:40:43] Okay, we can get that with the tide her chariots driven by horses mules and sometimes bulls She always rides side saddle because she's cute and she that's what she does and everybody says she has the most beautiful lovely silvery hair she may also [00:41:00] be riding. She may also have a dragon somewhere that she's hiding But we don't know for sure but it might be there sometimes they say that celine She's the one who causes the eclipses.
[00:41:11] She also loves making love. And sometimes she wants to be with Zeus. Sometimes she wants to be with Pan. She should probably stay away from Zeus. Cause I don't know if she heard, but his wife is wild. And she should probably not have to deal with that. Sometimes she wants to deal with Pan. Whatever, that's fine.
[00:41:28] She has mad kids with both of them. She just has children everywhere. No problem, Selene. But her favorite lover of all is this shepherd boy and his name is endominion. That's what we'll call him. And he's a shepherd. She's so obsessed. So here's the problem. Endominion fell in love with Hera and then Zeus punished him with eternal sleep.
[00:41:51] This is why I can't stand Zeus. I will talk about it to the end of times. I will never talk about Zeus on the show, on the story time because he's so [00:42:00] annoying. He's like, he's the most annoying mythological figure that I know.
[00:42:05] He's so no, I can't stand every time I'm like, oh, you're same. I'm like Zeus, you're God cool great like I honor you for that but like other than that you're just like you're doing too much. Yeah Okay, calm down
[00:42:20] So Edaminia he fell in love with Hera Zeus punished him with eternal sleep. Okay, Zeus, whatever you're it's not like you're not sleeping with somebody else all the time Harry didn't even sleep with him. He just whatever. Okay, I'm not gonna go into it. So He was sleeping. Apollo. Doris said that because of Enin surpassing beauty, the of the moon, AKA saline fell in love with him and Zeus allowed him to. choose what he wanted to do. He could either choose to be asleep forever or remain deathless and ageless.
[00:42:50] So what Selene does is she keeps him under this eternal sleep spell and only wakes up when she wants to make love. Which, [00:43:00] okay. I don't know how, I don't know how I feel about that, but that's what's happening apparently. She spends her days in the Anatolian caves in which Adam and Anne sleeps.
[00:43:14] She apparently has 50 kids with him. Each represents one of the moons of the Olympiad, which is all the moons over a course of four years. She's said to be the mother of Mauritius of Athens, who is a legendary polymath, philosopher, historian, prophecy, prophet, seer, priest, poet, and musician. And she is, and said to be the founder of priestly poetry in Attica.
[00:43:44] He composed hymns and prose and or, oh, oracular responses. So we actually are going to talk about this in the future. I don't know. Yeah. The way I'm going to organize these episodes. Actually talked about in a future episode. There were certain poets that would [00:44:00] hang around the oracles even the oracle of Delphi and they would translate their.
[00:44:08] Prophecies into I think it's what's it called? It's not is it called didactic? I think it Dactylic. Dactylic hexameter, like a poem. If you've ever read, like, The Odyssey, if you know the way it goes, like a poem, that's how they would translate the oracle's responses. This person was said to be one of those.
[00:44:35] And then there's a story about why there are craters on the moon. So according to the late account of Gnosis there was a giant monster Typhon who laid siege to the heavens and he attacked Selene as well as hurling bulls at her. But she managed to stay the course and rushed at her.
[00:44:54] Hissing like a viper. Selene fought back and the giant then locked horn with Typhon. [00:45:00] Afterward, she carried many stars on her orb remen Reminiscent of their battle. So Selene got into a fight with this giant monster And then her bull locked horns with the monster, but because she had all these scars, that's why the moon has craters.
[00:45:17] Also, don't ever tell Selene that you're prettier than her because she has problems with that. There was this nymph named Ampullus. Ampullus? And Ampullus was loved by the god Dionysus. So Ampullus was really pretty. Ampullus, one day she rode on a bull and then proceeded to compare. Oh, sorry, wait.
[00:45:37] Let me start that again. Ampelous was a very pretty nymph and loved by the goddess Dionysus. Ampelous rode on a bull and proceeded to compare himself to Selene, saying that he was just as beautiful as Selene. And that he had horns and that he ride he rode bulls just like her. So Selene got pissed off and he said that and sent a [00:46:00] gatfly to sting Ampullus bull, the bull threw Ampullus off and gorged him to death.
[00:46:05] So don't ever say you're prettier than her, cause she'll Find a way for you to die. It's pretty scary. She's not playing any games. Selene is loved by musicians, sorcerers, witches, and moon gazers and She's the moon, but she can also be seen as a very beautiful woman with a, I didn't know what this was called But I'm glad I do now, a diadem, which is one of those beautiful like halo crowns.
[00:46:33] You've seen all the girls wear them. It's very cute. And her crystals are moonstone and selenite. And if you ever need help with sleep, you may want to ask Selene to help you sleep. And that's our story time about the goddess Selene. Don't know how keen she is on consent because she's keeping this guy asleep in a cave, it is what it is There's nothing we could do about that.
[00:46:55] Oh, very nice. I like that. [00:47:00] Yes. Okay. Yes, Selene is cool. Like, again, maybe shouldn't be keeping this guy asleep forever, but like that's, whatever. But I do like Selene.
[00:47:14] Yeah, here's the thing. She's like, I don't, she's like, I like to make love, but I'm not about this whole, like having this man live in my house. Yeah, she's like, I'm just gonna see him when I'm ready and you know what I can't blame her for that There's nothing wrong with that. You go girl. Do it
[00:47:32] Okay, so okay everybody's going I'm sorry we're gonna say something yes, absolutely. Okay. Chhota Bath, thank you so much for being here. And again, thank you for recording with me again.
[00:47:46] Okay. All right. And of course, as always, all of Tudor best. Info will be in the show notes so you can go on there. You can check her out and yeah, I use threads too. I actually like threads. It's fun. Just [00:48:00] No, oh my god, I love it I like just like it's just like chatting with people and just being like hey like I think it's fun I was never quit a twitter person, but all of a sudden I like threads.
[00:48:11] It's very odd. I don't know but it's cool Yeah, it's Twitter seems aggressive to me like just yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah Okay thank you so much for being here, and thank all of you for listening. So this is Dine with the Divine, and we are also, like I said, we're on threads, we're on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and I think that's it for now.
[00:48:37] If you like this show, please feel free to give us a five star rating. It really helps people find me, and it helps other people say, Hey, that sounds like it's a pretty good show to listen to. You can give us a reading on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever your platform that you listen to us on.
[00:48:53] If you have any questions, comments, feel free to email me at dine with the divine pod at gmail. com. And if you want to [00:49:00] follow me, Ashley, I'm at Sankofa HS. That's S A N K O. F A H S and Sankofa Healing Sanctuary on Facebook. Thank you all for being here. I hope you have a wonderful week and I'll see you next time.
[00:49:15] Bye.