Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey everyone, just Kristen here. We wanted to issue a light trigger warning for this episode because of the nature of the topic of witches and the historical context that we'll be discussing. There are some mentions of death, assault and sexual assault throughout. Now, while we don't go into the, you know, the specifics for each of these topics, we did want to warn you just in case any of those topics are going to be a sensitive issue for you today.
Outside of that, we hope you enjoy the episode.
Okay. Welcome to the but why podcast where Laura and I spend about an hour questioning the human experience. This week we are talking about witches. This will be a part one discussing the kind of pre history of witches.
So yeah, do you want to kick us off, Laura?
[00:01:08] Speaker B: My brain then just like slightly switched off.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: Kick us off it is I surprised.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: So, yeah. Do we wanted some general chit chat first?
[00:01:18] Speaker A: I suppose. I mean we could be less awkward about things.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Kristen is like, oh, do we have to do some small talk? Can we not just like start getting into the nitty gritty of witches?
[00:01:29] Speaker A: I know, but I think we never have small talk. That's why we have so many tangents.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that is true. That does just happen.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: I thought what would be fun. Laura and I, I think, have very different approaches to Halloween.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Oh my gosh. Yes. I completely forgot that we were going to do this.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm so glad that your brain is actually switched on.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: I wouldn't go that far.
[00:01:52] Speaker B: We do have, we do have different approaches to Halloween.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Yes. I'm obsessed with Halloween, which we might be able to tell just by my general vibe. If you're watching instead of listening. I look like a witch half the time anyway. So we thought we would bring some fun old Halloween photos, one each. Otherwise I'd be here forever. I don't know about you, Laura, I.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: Wouldn'T be able to do that. I would not have enough content.
So do you want to go first?
[00:02:25] Speaker A: What I'll do. So if you're watching, be able to see the pictures and if you're listening, I'll describe it a little bit. Or I think we should each describe each other's because that would be funnier.
So I'll show you it, then I'll like upload it on the actual video. You have to guess which one's me and you have to come describe it.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: Are you at the. At the back? At the very back?
[00:02:49] Speaker A: The giant one?
[00:02:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so as a description of this, how do I describe this? Okay, the backdrop, there are some very strange Creepy looking.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Oh, you're going full description things.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: And then there's one, two, three, four of them. One tiny child. One. Two medium children. And then one very tall child, which I believe is Kristen. Kristen looks like she's about to kill something.
You're like rubbing, like rubbing your hands together with like this super intense, like black lipstick on.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Yes, I'm dressed as a witch.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: Sparkles.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Yes. Sparkly witch.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: To kind of throw it, throw it off.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: That's a pretty good description of it. Sparkly evil witch.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: That's amazing.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: That's probably how my husband would describe me.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: Yes.
You're in your true form.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: In my true form and what I truly wanted to be.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: So, yeah, my who I am are you. You're the one with Christmas vibes.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: Halloween vibe is not great.
[00:03:57] Speaker A: You're the only one not dressed up. Yeah, that's me.
I like the theme because you're surrounded by three other witches, which is great. And you're just in like a fleece sweater, cheesing at the camera.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Living life with I think a little.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Maybe a little malice in your eyes.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: I do have red eyes. Something is going on there.
But yeah, I always used to just like refuse to dress up on Halloween. I think I just used to feel so, like, awkward, like having to dress up. And so I'd always prefer not to. So everyone else is like getting dressed up as like bimbag witches. And I'm like, you know what? No, I'm not doing that.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: See, I felt awkward. A normal life and Halloween is my time to thrive.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: I love that. I wish I was like that. I don't know what it is for me. There's something that just makes me feel so self conscious when I have to, like, dress up.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: That's so funny.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: I was telling this to Matt before and he was like, but you're like, that makes no sense. Because by not dressing up, you're the one that looks weird. I'm like, yeah.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: You'Re like, read that one wrong.
Yeah, I get it. Right.
Story of our lives.
Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Okay, well, I suppose I'll kick us off. So Laura and I have done quite a bit of research for this because while it's a topic of interest, it's not a topic of expertise.
So a lot of the background of it is, like the reasons for it is kind of like our areas of expertise, but not the exact topic of witches. So that was super cool and also super upsetting to do.
And so I thought that I would start by reading something from a book It's a really good book. It's called In Defense of Witches by Mona Shalet. It was translated from French and it really talks about the past and present history of witches and why women are still on trial.
And just to let you know, I hate reading out loud, so wish me luck and don't judge me for my reading out loud voice. But I thought it would kind of get us started. So it says, imagine for a moment your witch. Not your earliest witch necessarily, but the one who first captured your attention. Are you holding her in your mind? Imagine. I can tell you some things about her. She's a woman, single and childless. She has her own little house which she may or may not share with an animal. She's an artist, a craftswoman or a scientist, if you imagine magic as a kind of science. She has an undeniable air of poise and a wonderful sense of style. It cannot be denied that she is wily, self satisfied and in charge of her own affairs. She commands respect. She is, to interesting people, someone worth learning from, if not emulating entirely. She is what happens when women get to direct the warp and weft of their own lives. So I thought that was an interesting one to kick us off.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely.
I was thinking about Sabrina the Teenage Witch though, and some of those things I don't think track, but some of them, definitely. Well, I think it's.
[00:07:12] Speaker A: It's interesting because the concept of the Good Witch wasn't really invented until the wizard of Oz.
And that was invented on purpose by the nephew of a feminist researcher, writer who was really into researching the history of witches. And he kind of wanted to rewrite that history. And ever since then we kind of had it interwoven more into pop culture where you can be positive.
What's that? The witch from like the 70s 80s show.
You know, you've got Sabrina the Teenage Witch. So it's more of like a positive twist. So that's really nice. But I think a lot of them kind of come out where she's cool.
You know, she has a sense of style, she has an animal, that kind of stuff.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: And then like you say, if you think of the more. Well, the earlier kind of depictions, then yeah, that's certainly going more towards kind of, I suppose, the definition. Not definition, but the kind of passage that you're reading out. I suppose if we think about things like Snow White, I suppose you might get more of an.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Like the old hag.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: Yeah, that sort of image. Yeah, exactly.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: So clearly from my, like my Halloween photo. I've always loved witches. I've been obsessed with witches as a child, and one of the things that really resonated with me in this book is it gives the idea that women can have some additional power. Now, obviously this isn't like, necessarily a conscious thing when you're like, 12, but it just gave this idea that being unthreatening and dependent were not the only options available, which I quite liked the idea of, like, you don't really see many kind of women in pop culture or in societal views, I guess, at least back in the day, that aren't, you know, independent and maybe threatening to other people, you know, that are positive for that give that kind of idea. Do you know what I mean?
[00:09:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's almost interesting that we have to go so far as, like, witches and like, I suppose, in a way, like kind of fantasy characters in order to find that, like, it's not something that necessarily feels like it's based in reality. Obviously, there is reality to it in terms of what we're going to talk about today in terms of the history and the witch trials and so on, but nowadays it's almost like we're having to stretch that far to think of these fantastical kind of witches, to see women as strong and independent and so on. And obviously that's shifting and we see a lot more of that in our world nowadays. But there is still this, I think, something really, like, special almost about looking to witches as that kind of. Yeah. As that characterization of independence and strength in women.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: Yeah. I think that's a really good point you bring up. And it makes me think. And it's something we'll probably dig into more next episode.
But the modern. It's how it still impacts us today when you're seeing powerful women. Like, for example, when Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, the slogan from both sides of the aisle was, ding dong, the witch is dead.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: So it's. It's still there. And so I think that this episode will set the stage really well for the next episode.
You know, another thing that this author Shalei writes is that our cultural and social response to women can't be unthreaded from our historic treatment of women perceived to be witches. And I think that's kind of why we chose this episode to kind of set the stage and chiefly focus on the witch hunts, if that makes sense. So before I get started on that, do you have anything to chime in or do you want me to get going?
[00:11:17] Speaker B: No, go for it. I'm ready.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: One of the things that kept popping up for me is that we often kind of start to look at or consider the witch hunt as like something that's part of the Middle Ages, so quite dark, quite regressive. Something that's, you know, only happening with the super religious aspect of things.
But when we actually look at it, they're most extensive. Extensive during the Renaissance. Do we have a dog entry in.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: The room that the dog has entered? Yay. I'll have to see if he behaves or not. Yeah, tell me if he's too loud.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: It's always a bonus when we get a dog visitor. He's your familiar?
Oh, yeah, he is. But they were most extensive during the Renaissance, which we tend to look at as the time of enlightenment.
As we'll see, it's the time of enlightenment and heavy quotes, but not for women.
And there were still executions at the end of the 18th century for witchcraft. So it lasted a very long time. And it wasn't just tied to religion. So basically it's a big melting pot, or cauldron, you might say, that melt into a bunch of misogyny.
It's important to note that, like, the witch hunts themselves have been so kind of like, upfront in our minds that it takes away from the genuine historical roots of the witch as a magic user.
So, you know, magic is something that humans have always kind of considered. There's this thing in our brains that if we can't, you know, understand the source of something, that will make an answer for it. And so a lot of the times, that's where many religions can come from. That's where the sense of magic can come from. And, you know, it used to be sorcery or, you know, magic as like an accepted human thing. You're healing somebody through magic. It's, it's, you know, you're mixing herbs together and it's magic, things like that.
So the thing is, we have that side of it and then we have the side where we have the idea of women destroying society, which has always kind of been there, from Pandora's box to Eve on that side of it. So we're looking at this and the timeline can be super, super convoluted. So I'm just going to do my best with that side of things. But the main thing to keep in the back of your mind is as patriarchy and capitalism and these systems that are still in place today grew, women just existing in their own became more dangerous. And witchcraft, or the rise of accusing people of witchcraft kind of grew alongside that. So when we're listening to this we want to kind of replace the word witch with women most of the time.
So that's my general kind of preamble to what we're going to talk about.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: I think it's interesting there as you kind of staying like, people are almost looking for an explanation. Like, as humans, that's what we're always doing. We're trying to look for a reason for something, whether that thing is real or not. So you're kind of saying that this idea of sorcery. Here's the dog again. That's that this idea of sorcery, like, we're kind of, I guess, putting off on women in terms of using them in order to provide this explanation. But for some reason that then turns into like fear and danger rather than actually something that is, like, magical and, like, exciting. It's like given this, like, very negative connotation, which I also think is interesting. It's not like.
Yeah, it's not like, seen as a strength. It's seen as a. Yes. Something to be fearful of.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: Well, that's an interesting point you make, because sorcery wasn't to be feared until it was blamed on women. So before these more Christian areas, they were more men accused of kind of sorcery and magic using, but they were just kind of like, I will throw you in the stocks. We're not going to murder you.
Women weren't thought to be capable of magic because they weren't smart enough or capable enough.
You know, it was before the reasons.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: That point is ridiculous in itself.
[00:15:42] Speaker A: Right?
[00:15:43] Speaker B: Like, what on earth. Like, surely it can't be this. Like, there's no way they're smart enough to be able to do magic. Right?
[00:15:51] Speaker A: I know exactly. Like, only these men can have the education to be a sorcerer.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: I know. So I'll go into that a little bit more about when that change started to happen.
But I think we should talk about where the general idea.
Puppy.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: I think I'm gonna. I'm gonna press pause and just remove the dog. The dog is currently licking my face. Okay. B. Okay, so going into.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: The Brewsters or like Alewives.
This is something I thought was interesting because I think it, like, paints. Quite paints a really nice kind of visual of kind of what? It might have been kind of like that, like, kind of back then. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to read out a little passage which I took from the Museum of Oxford website. Mostly because I want to get, like the visual in there and not, you know, explain it badly. All Right. So here you go. So some historians have noted the similarities between the efficacious commonly associated with alewives and the common portrayal of witches. So even today that there's these stereotypical images of alewives that we associate with witches. So these are things like bubbling cauldrons or black cats. Pointy hats, basically. Kristen, broomsticks. So these seem to stem directly from alewives and their negative portrayal. So one of the visuals I really like here, it says it was traditional for an alewife to display a broomstick outside their home, sometimes known as an ale stick, to signal that ale was available to purchase.
And then obviously, kind of cats were an ally of the alewives. They kept mice out of their grain supplies. Tall black hat was thought to be part of, like, the unofficial uniform for brewers.
So this kind of helped them to stand out in public kind of as like a marketing sort of thing.
So I think it's interesting how this. Yes. Stereotypical brew. Brew. Stereotypical view.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: I would love a stereotypical brew right now.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: Yes, please. But view of. Of kind of alewives or brewers is then put onto witches. And I think. And Kristen, please tell me if I'm wrong, but I think I was listening to something where they were saying there was almost a, I think, again, like a kind of fear from, say, male brewers of the kind of women, like, taking over the business because they were kind of good at kind of brewing and so on. So it was taking away from. From them and kind of, I guess, their position in society. And this is one of the reasons of the negative portrayal. Is that. Is that something that you've seen as well?
[00:18:57] Speaker A: Yeah. So it's not. It's. It's. It's basic. That's basically it. Essentially, this was a women's job. Most of them were actually married women because they would need the money to, you know, invest in the wheat and everything like that. But it was more of just like women doing this for the most part. But it became so important at the time because water was dangerous to drink. And people started to realize that actually you're boiling beer, it's much safer to drink than water. And that's when men started to realize that beer was profitable. And this is where we get that it's not just religion, it's secular. It's combined with, like, the capitalism and all these other things. And so essentially they started basically spreading rumors that women were poisoning the beer and being all gross. So they're like. They're like going to the toilet in the beer. They're putting animals in it. They've got like warts that they're putting into the beer like this.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: They're actually adding to that hat and broom aesthetic. The warts, the grossness, just like really making these. What did you call them? The beer women. What are they called?
[00:20:08] Speaker B: Alewives.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: Making the alewives. Sorry, I forgot. Seem gross so people wouldn't want to buy them. And that's kind of that initial kind of where the more Christian view of the witch comes from.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: It wasn't because men were like, oh, I'm threatened because you're gonna take over my ale business. It was men going, I want the ale business because I want the money.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: I want part of this.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: Yeah. And they can't. They couldn't go, oh, well, we can also do this and do a actual thing and compete. It was. No, we're just gonna drive you out of business by accusing you to be a witch.
[00:20:44] Speaker B: Yeah. So like, like, why, like, why do they decide to, like you say, you provide, like a perfectly good way that, you know, they can, they can both do this. There's enough for everybody. We realize that this is something that we need. Maybe we can get on it as well. No, instead we're just gonna bring down the women. And not just bring them down, but actually accuse them of. Yeah. Being witches and actually get them. Get them all murdered, basically.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: Yeah, basically.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: Like, how bizarre. And I wonder if, like when that was initially starting to kind of become the narrative, like that was being spun, if the people who were spinning that actually realized how far this was going to go.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: I doubt it. I mean, I saw a study the other day that said only 15% of people are self aware. And I have a feeling that back then. That back then it was significantly less. And so I think people were just doing whatever they wanted and not thinking about how it impacted other people. I didn't care.
And they just wanted to do what they could. Some, you know, maybe some people were just doing it to survive. It was a good business, money making thing. But at the same time, like, let's not get people murdered. But I guess that was more of just part of life at the time. Like, people were going to watch hangings for taking their kids out for the day for fun. Like, ooh, let's go see the witch get, you know, unalived. What a fun family day out. So it really demonstrates how patriarchy works. So this, you know, obviously research shows this would never happen in a matriarchy because it's not that kind of hierarchical power dynamic where you have to knock Somebody off to do well, so we should probably do an episode on. On like the different kind of power structures. But essentially it was that kind of. It's. It's a reaction to women taking up a bit more social space, really, not economic space, not much. I guess they were taking up a little bit with, you know, the beer, but nothing else really. So it became a reaction to that. And I think it's important to mention as well, like, a lot of people were looking at witches, like, oh, this is a cool topic. It's interesting.
Oh, I had a witch in my family. This is a cool topic of conversation. But like, at least hundreds of thousands of people died in the 70s. They were saying like millions. Now we're saying ranging in the hundred thousands. But the thing is, it's like this wasn't actively recorded. Only the people that were burned at the stake or hung were pretty much recorded. This doesn't. Never recorded death from imprisonment, assault, other means.
And so loads of people died. And I think it's important to emphasize that, like, this was a reaction of a bunch of things combining, whether that be individual situations and religious and patriarchal structures, capitalism, things like that, building up over time. And as women took up more space in society, you know, this kind of. The beer wife, I keep forgetting the actual name. And everything else formed as this, like, in one perfect storm of like this general idea of the evil witch. And there were some really important intersections of historical events that took place that furthered this. But I didn't know if you had anything to kind of mention now or if you wanted to chime in on anything.
[00:24:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I think what I'm thinking about is just this idea of like, taking up space. And I think this is something that still, like, a lot of, you know, a lot of women, I don't want to say like, struggle with, but like, compete with in a way is this idea of taking up space. And. And it's just interesting almost hearing it kind of stem back kind of to this time, like around the time when kind of witches are being accused. And it's almost like, well, actually this started from, yeah, women being independent, taking up space, being successful. And then as you say, like the horrors kind of that's happening afterwards and the insane kind of number of women who are being accused and being killed almost like stems down from like. To taking up space.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it really does. And it is about. It's like you said, it's misogyny. It's women existing. It causes prejudice and beyond which is misogyny, essentially. And while Men were killed, you know, in the witch trials and arrested and accused. Accused as being witches. There was significantly less. Significantly less. And also their rate of, I think maybe 20% were accused and only 30% of those were killed. Obviously, still horrible. But this whole situation is based in misogyny. And the important intersection in time that we're talking about is the invention of the printing press, which the reason I'm transitioning into that is because your statement about, like, women taking up space. The two men who had the most impact were basically just pissed off about women existing. And they were like, oh, this whole printing press thing's fun.
So the printing press was invented in 1454.
And so basically the printing press and a couple of old school incels essentially activated this whole situation. So, like I mentioned before this era, more men were accused but not murdered to be magic users. They were like, oh, Gary over there, he's doing some cool educational magic that we're gonna call sorcery. Like, stop it. That's not for. That's not good. And it was. It was all fine.
Which I think we should still know is misogyny, because it's like, women aren't smart enough to be witches or sorceresses.
Sorry.
[00:27:26] Speaker B: It's just so frustrating how, like, suddenly they're like, you know, actually, let's change what we believe. Actually. Yes, it is like, of course, like, women can. And that comes down to, like, even then, it's like, not the fact that actually women could, like, wield magic and sorcery, it's that they were tempted by the devil and then they were able to. To do sorcery. It's like, we couldn't even do that on our own.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Oh, my God. That is such a good point. Like, women aren't, like, educating themselves in sorcery, because that would be crazy. They're just corrupted by the devil.
[00:28:01] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. It's Satan.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:28:05] Speaker B: It can't be that women were able to learn this stuff. It's the devil. Sorry.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: This is why it's so frustrating to read all this.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: Like, what is it?
[00:28:17] Speaker A: And so essentially what we're seeing here is this broad media campaign using all of that era's kind of communication capabilities. So we've got the printing press for those who could read, we have sermons for those who couldn't read, and loads and loads of visual representation of witches that we start to see kind of this representation of the alewife and stuff like that. So the main one invented by in cells number one and two in conjunction, was the Malleus. Malefica. Malefica Maleficarum.
[00:28:53] Speaker B: I can never say this.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: I'm a witch, so I can't say it.
Maleficarum, yes. And that was printed in 1486, and it is. It means the hammer of the witches, which is actually quite. Could be quite cool. And it escalated so quickly because it was invented in Germany, where the printing press was invented. So it was, like, right at the same time. And it spread like wildfire through Western Europe.
The writer, the main writer, basically blamed women for his lust towards them. So he really valued his purity as a man because he was very religious.
So obviously, like, linking back to what we talked about last week with ambivalent sexism theory, like, it's women's fault for being the seductress, of course.
And so this was really the start of, like, hating and being scared of women as witches. So a big thing in this was women are impure, they're evil, they doubt the faith, they're so vulnerable to demons. Unlike men, who are just so invulnerable, but somehow also vulnerable to witches. Women are weak and feeble of mind. Like, it's Eve's fault because she damned woman from the beginning. Interestingly, maleficarum means sorceress, so that's that gendered aspect. So we're not talking about hammer of the sorcerer or the kind of magic user. We're talking about hammer of the sorceress, the gendered woman magic user. And so it's from the beginning, it's women's fault. Women are the bad magic users.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think I remember reading something in relation to this where, like, this was even used as, you know, reasons for why, like, women were getting, like, actually it was their fault because they're witches. Like, you say they're kind of seducing the men, so it's actually their fault that they're getting gay. And that's just absolutely wild, isn't it? But we still see, like. Even though it's obviously it's not, like, tied to, like, witches nowadays, but we still see that sort of narrative where actually it's the woman's fault because of, like, what they're wearing and so on.
So it's interesting how that has almost stuck.
[00:31:16] Speaker A: Yeah, it really has. It's. And what would happen back then is, okay, well, you were accused of being a witch because you were sexually assaulted. And it was, like, a way to stave off responsibility and blame the woman, but then the woman would probably be murdered as a result, which you do see again in Modern society. Like, they're obviously hopefully not again being assaulted again physically, but the mental assault, which we see countlessly in the. In the news, like, on her personality, on her decisions and things like that. And it's. That's a really interesting thing to bring up.
Very frustrating.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's. It's like, because I don't think I've ever really thought about, you know, I never haven't really thought about witches that much, apart from like, just what we might see, like, in the media and more of, like, modern day. But especially since, like, we've been digging a bit more into obviously, like, research into sexism, like, more specifically in sport. But I think as I start to kind of understand that more. And then you go back, like, to kind of the witch trials and things that they were being accused of back then. It is bizarre to, like, make those links and see how maybe, like, language might have changed a bit, but actually what people are being accused of in a sense, like, hasn't. Hasn't changed that much.
[00:32:44] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a really good point. And it's something that the author of that book I was talking about brings up. If these witch trials hadn't happened, we would probably be living in a very different world right now. Like you said, the language has changed, but the kind of base actions and the base kind of guidebook for it is pretty much still the same. And think about how long ago that was and how it's still impacting us. It's just kind of crazy. Like, it's almost like. So this was written as a guide on how to persecute and murder witches. And that guide still acts today. Again, linking to that religious and secular kind of thing. I mean, there's. Let me read a quote from this.
This is gonna piss you off.
I'll read two quotes. Male witches are of little concern. If the evil of the woman did not exist, the world would remain unburdened of countless dangers. And the author of the book says women obviously weaken body and mind, spurred on by an insatiable, licentious drive, easy prey for the devil. And then the other quote is, because women are the negative counterpart to men, they corrupt male perfection through witchcraft and must be destroyed. So we're not even, like, saying, like, that witches should be destroyed. It's like, well, maybe we just extend that to the women more broadly.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: If we just kill all of the women, then we'll get all of the witches and it'll be fine. Yeah, like, obviously everything will be great.
[00:34:15] Speaker A: Then the speeches won't Die out or anything?
[00:34:18] Speaker B: No, no, no, nothing like that. No, they can just do it on their own.
[00:34:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:22] Speaker B: Gosh. And again, it's just like these double standards in these quotes as well. So we're. We're really dangerous, but we're also very weak.
[00:34:31] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: And it's like.
And we kind of spoke about this a little bit, like, earlier, but there's this again, like, these double standards that we also have today. Like, you are either too loud and, like, a total bitch, or, like, you're really shy and quiet and too reserved. Like, you can't have, like, a middle ground. And it's like, here we're, like, really dangerous, but also really weak, like, at the same time.
And it just.
It's like, who's writing these things and thinks. Yeah, like, this makes loads of sense.
[00:35:04] Speaker A: Well, do you want to know the next person who wrote the next most important thing? Also an incale. And in sale. For sale. I don't know what's Friday in sale?
It's the book called Demonology, and it's by King James. You know the King James that wrote the Bible. The King James Bible.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[00:35:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yep.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: So these are gonna tell us things about the Bible.
[00:35:29] Speaker A: These are. These are the ones. Well, there is some impact. These are the. These are the guys that are writing these rules. So this was in the late 1500s. It took a lot. Obviously. Got a copy and paste that incel content from the Malleus maleficarum.
Essentially King James, who was the son of Mary Queen of Scots. And fascinating history. Very convoluted. I'm a bit. I love history, but, like, I don't need to go into it.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: I don't know a thing about history.
[00:36:00] Speaker A: It's a good thing. I'm, like, such a history nerd because half of the questions on my citizenship test for the UK were, like, answerable from my history shows that were, like, partially based in fact.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: So nice. I would fail, but if I had to take that test, I would fail.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: What time does the pub open on Sunday?
[00:36:19] Speaker B: On a Sunday?
[00:36:20] Speaker A: Yeah, that was one of the questions.
[00:36:22] Speaker B: I don't know, like, 10.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: You can't be British. That's the rule.
[00:36:28] Speaker B: When do they open?
[00:36:29] Speaker A: 12.
[00:36:31] Speaker B: 12.
All right. That was my second answer.
[00:36:34] Speaker A: Can you believe that was on my chest?
[00:36:36] Speaker B: No, it's very important. They don't want you turning up early or, you know, getting drunk too soon.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: Right.
[00:36:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:41] Speaker A: You gotta control it. Probably because of the football, I would assume.
[00:36:45] Speaker B: Yeah, Makes sense.
[00:36:46] Speaker A: No, I'm sure it was because of.
I don't Know. I don't know. I'm not even gonna guess why. Now, let's not try.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: Let's not try to make sense of these things.
[00:36:57] Speaker A: Back to King James, the writer of the King James Bible. Not writer, but like the editor. Essentially, he blamed witches for the death of his mother. And there was also some really bad storm that happened when he was trying to cross the sea for some war or something. I don't know. And he blamed witches for trying to kill him.
Obviously, he didn't have anyone specifically in mind, just witches. More broadly, witches, you know, just the witches. Those damn witches.
So here's one example from the Bible that he changed. This is Exodus 22:18. And the quote we know is, thou shall not permit a witch to live, or you shall not permit a sorceress to live. What's your thought about that? Do you think that was the original? The og.
[00:37:42] Speaker B: I don't know what the original was.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: The original was, thou shall not permit a poisoner to live.
[00:37:48] Speaker B: Oh, okay, okay, okay. I was gonna say it would be kind of weird if it was like, that explicit in terms of a witch. That seems very explicit. Right?
[00:37:57] Speaker A: Yeah. So the King James Bible now says, thou shall not permit a witch to live, but he changed it from, thou shall not permit a poisoner to live.
[00:38:07] Speaker B: Interesting. So somebody else wrote poisoner and he changed it to witch. Basically, yeah. Okay, that's interesting. And I keep thinking here, like, the religious ties are interesting. It's because they can't be like, oh, maybe. Maybe, like, God's upset with us, so there's been a storm. You know, I mean.
[00:38:27] Speaker A: Oh, my God, that's such a good point.
[00:38:28] Speaker B: Like, God. Like, God is like, no offense to anybody, really, just like, God is great.
[00:38:34] Speaker A: Right?
[00:38:34] Speaker B: So therefore, they. He. She could not have kind of brought this storm to him and brought this kind of. This. These kind of bad events to him. So therefore it's a witch.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: Well, I mean, how would God bring that upon the king, who's supposed to have divine power from God? So it has to be witches. Oh, my God. I'm gonna go on a little tangent.
[00:38:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Okay.
[00:38:59] Speaker A: No, you go first.
[00:39:01] Speaker B: No, I was just gonna say, why couldn't it just have been the devil? Why can't you say, you shall not permit the devil to live or Satan to live? Why is it specifically a sorceress?
[00:39:11] Speaker A: I feel like poisoner was.
[00:39:12] Speaker B: And, like, poisoner was totally fine. Like.
[00:39:17] Speaker A: Like poisoner makes sense. Like, okay, let's not let poisoners poison us. That's. That's fine.
[00:39:23] Speaker B: Like, if you like, let's just focus on, like, one group of people who may potentially poison.
[00:39:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:29] Speaker B: Like.
Yeah.
[00:39:32] Speaker A: And just to emphasize, like, like, we're not bashing religion as a concept. We're bashing the specific things that, like, happened that people did.
[00:39:42] Speaker B: It's like, when it's used in a way that, like, puts other people down or, like, it's used as a way to, like, make sense of something that is then harming other people. It's like, don't use, like, religion as a tool to then, you know, like, basically spread lies about certain groups of people and harm.
[00:40:04] Speaker A: And like you said, harm people and. And going back to what you were saying about, like, the convenience of. Okay, well, why. Why does it have to be witches? Why can't it just be God? Because that would be an inconvenient thing for his.
[00:40:18] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:40:19] Speaker A: Being king. He wouldn't like what's going on. Like, God's trying to kill him. Now God's letting the devil try to kill him.
Another. Okay, here's my tangent. So Joan of Arc, 1400s. This was a bit before. This was in, I think, the Hundred Year War between England and France. And, you know, she was this badass, you know, woman. She was, like, 17 when all this went down.
Convinced the French king, forget his name, that she had visions from God that she could help. I think it was Charles. She could help him win. Blah, blah, blah. She was this divine maiden. She was amazing. She got captured by the English and got accused to be a witch. And basically what happened is, well, the French went, well, if she was a divine maiden, she wouldn't have been able to be captured. So obviously she's an evil witch.
That didn't affect his becoming king, though. He was still like, you know, a valid king.
[00:41:21] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: Like, the logic is just insane.
I just. Yeah. I don't know. It's like, surely if she's a witch, she would have flown away and you wouldn't have been able to catch her either.
[00:41:31] Speaker A: Right. That's such a good point. I mean, that was one of the criteria for witches in King James demonology book was they must be able to fly away, especially for the purpose of, like, demonic meetings. So why wouldn't she just fly away for her demonic meeting?
[00:41:47] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
Wow.
[00:41:50] Speaker A: Do you want to know what demonology describes as. What is it? An order of the most evil women. Like the three most evil women they could imagine.
[00:42:00] Speaker B: Okay, yeah.
[00:42:01] Speaker A: So concubines, which obviously are sex workers that are owned by men. Midwives and dominating wives. Wives. That kind of Overtake their husbands.
[00:42:12] Speaker B: Why? Why?
[00:42:13] Speaker A: For those listening and not watching, Laura's face right now is a mixture of shock and annoyance.
[00:42:21] Speaker B: Like, again, it's like the logic is just so bad. Like surely the ones who are most dangerous, isn't it like the ones that are like independent, like not married. And I think that was kind of a narrative that was also sort of put out there. But the fact that it's like you say concubine, so literally owned by, by men. And so, so is this maybe, I suppose these, I guess most evil women, they have been labeled this because it's like the most dangerous for men. Do you know what I mean? Maybe that's almost like how it feels is it's like these are the types of women that perhaps they encounter and for them, like, these are the most. Do you know what I mean?
[00:43:04] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, for the concept. I mean, they're obviously using their feminine wiles to manipulate the men.
[00:43:13] Speaker B: Obviously.
[00:43:14] Speaker A: When we're going back to our sexism conversation from last week, this. These are probably the men, I mean, the women like we were talking about that are set outside that more traditional role and are a threat maybe.
[00:43:29] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that's interesting as well. It's like the. More like women move away from that traditional and kind of stereotypical view of like what women should be and you should be nice and kind of well mannered and women should be as described.
[00:43:44] Speaker A: By men or patriarchy.
[00:43:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: Sorry.
[00:43:49] Speaker B: Basically how the men want you to be, like, if you step away from that, then witch.
[00:43:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And today it's just like, it's like, yeah, yeah.
[00:44:04] Speaker B: Did they, did they like come from one another?
[00:44:07] Speaker A: I don't know. I know that witch bitch has been used as an insult towards women, you know, in more like recent decades. I can't remember the exact people. Maybe I'll try and bring that in for next time.
But we should definitely look that up because it would make sense.
[00:44:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:25] Speaker A: So yeah, as we're looking at this, obviously the printing press happened more criteria for what a witch was or wasn't more about like what a witch was. They didn't really have a ruling out process other than like the really double standardy ones, like where if you try, if you float, you're a witch, but if you drown, you're fine, but you're also dead.
Oh my God. Lord.
[00:44:49] Speaker B: Like I can just imagine, can you just imagine like a group of men like sitting around a table being like, right, let's write this guy as to what counts. If You're a witch. And let's write some of these, like, tests that we can do. And like, who was like, this is an amazing idea. Like, who said that was nobody. Like, you know, if she's not a witch, then she's dead. And they're like, yeah, that's all right.
[00:45:14] Speaker A: That'S fine, that's fine.
[00:45:15] Speaker B: Like, somebody gave that the okay.
[00:45:18] Speaker A: I think it's either not inconvenient if a woman dies, or it's also could be convenient. Like, well, what if I want to get rid of my wife? You know what I mean? Like, either she's accused of the witch and is burnt at the stake, or we just chuck her in the well and she's hog tied and she just floats the bottom. Oh, no, she was innocent. Poor me. Somebody come care for me.
[00:45:41] Speaker B: I'm so sad. Win, win.
[00:45:43] Speaker A: Right?
[00:45:43] Speaker B: And I really want to know, like, again, like, is this something they were aware of or not? And like you said, like, what 15% of people are actually self aware, but were they doing this with this like, malicious intent just to like wipe out women? Or did they genuinely, like, think that they were witches and had been like, taken by the devil? Like, what was it?
[00:46:09] Speaker A: I think it was probably a combination. I think there was probably a lot of fear going on and fear driven by like that top end. Like, if I'm even associated with a witch and don't report her, I could be killed or I'm afraid of a witch corrupting me and xyz. So there was probably fear. But I'm. There's always just bad people as well. I think. You know, there are so many reports of people using this as a convenient way to.
You know, we don't have time to necessarily discuss the Salem witch trials, which were later on, but this became like, it was crazy. It became more of a way of getting property or, you know, getting rid of somebody you're not a fan of. So that would be such an I. I wish we could find out. I really wish we could find out the answer to that.
[00:47:02] Speaker B: It would be really interesting, I think, just to like be in some of those conversations that people were having back then. And it like, do people generally believe this? Or some people, like you say more just being led by fear. And I suppose that's somewhat of what can be kind of seen nowadays with like a whole host of things where some people might not necessarily believe and say what's happening in the world, but we go along with it because it's easier. It's like the path of least resistance we're just kind of following society like sheep rather than calling something out and putting ourselves in a higher risk position.
So, yeah, it would have been interesting to see what it was like to be around kind of at that time. Well, also not. I also do not want to know.
[00:47:46] Speaker A: We would have been burnt.
[00:47:47] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:47:48] Speaker A: Yeah. If we could just like go and.
[00:47:50] Speaker B: Look dead by now.
[00:47:51] Speaker A: But the other thing is we wouldn't be able to go look and not do anything about it. Yeah. So that would be an issue, I think, relating to that point. So connecting that. Well, firstly, I think it's important to note through all this that humans are so socially driven to kind of stay and go with the structures that we see everyone else doing, because that's what we've evolved to do and that's safe. And so you really see evidence in a lot of this, almost like avoiding punishment, avoiding social and physical punishment by going along with it. But eventually this became law of the land. So it's not just like religious law is law the land. Henry VIII made it a law where, you know, witches were supposed to be murdered, obviously. Or was it Henry vii? I can't remember Henry viii. Obviously Henry VIII was the head of church and reason that so many people went over to the States to get that separation of church and state. So, like, that is still convoluted. Obviously not working in America very well right now anyway.
But as this happened, the persecution of witches and publishing all these guides became a goldmine for publishers. Men of education started writing like no different texts on this.
So. So really you see that it's not just a religious driven thing, but it's like a more societal driven thing, which we tend to see that interaction quite consistently. You know, I think you were going to talk about how men were kind of scared about women now taking their jobs as well. Like men of education are starting to go, oh, shit, women are there as competition.
[00:49:32] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. And like we were saying before, like in terms of the like alewives, that was, well, I suppose competition, or here's a good idea, let's jump on it and not let the women get it. But I think this was also happening a lot in terms of when we think about medicine or back then they might have called it healers or obviously doctors, but the male doctors were wanting to eliminate the competition in terms of female healers. And there is some research that we found that I think it might have been from this year or last year, but that discusses the impact of this on like nursing and midwifery kind of professions and how a Lot of. Obviously, like I think you said, didn't you, like, one of the most evil types of women is a midwife, obviously bringing children into the world. Oh, my God. So actually there was a lot of.
Sounds like there was a lot of kind of learnings, a lot of.
Yeah. Kind of teachings that were lost around that time in terms of these practices from like nurses and midwives because they were getting wiped out. And the potential link is. Yeah, because of this fear from male doctors wanting to get rid of the competition.
[00:50:51] Speaker A: It just made me. Just triggered in my head, like, I'm assuming that midwives and healers who were women would have had, like written texts or even just pictures of the herbs they're using in combination of different procedures they're doing. Like, I wonder if that's related at all to, like the witches. Like a. Like a witch's book. What's it called? I should know this potion book. No, what's it called? Oh, and he said, google this because it's gonna piss me off. It's gonna come to me as soon as I.
[00:51:19] Speaker B: But yeah. Okay, so like how, again, like this kind of imagery kind of being taken.
So how we kind of stereotypically see a witch is maybe kind of coming a bit from kind of nurses and like writing down practices and so on.
[00:51:35] Speaker A: Grimoire. Sorry, got there.
[00:51:38] Speaker B: A what? I don't think I've ever heard of that before.
[00:51:39] Speaker A: Really? A grimoire, it's like a common. It's like the book that details all of a witch's spells.
[00:51:46] Speaker B: Wow, I learned something.
Grim. Grimoire.
[00:51:52] Speaker A: I'm here to educate, slash, Google is because I forgot the word.
[00:51:56] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:51:59] Speaker A: But, yeah, I think that it ties in really well to what you were saying before about how this is like such a precursor to what we're experiencing today, that fear that women's existence is going to somehow take jobs or power and money away from men. I think like you said, it's. That's the first wish from the mead. Mead women, mead wives. I don't know, Beer ladies, ale.
From the beer ladies through to the midwives and all that kind of stuff, they started to see women as economic competition as well. And that's what we still kind of experience. So as we talked about before, before this, accusations, especially when it was about male magic users, were more like a day in the stocks. As soon as these heavily published and propagandized texts were saying, it was basically a female issue, a women's issue. Punishments became extremely severe. There were sexual aspects of torture that I won't really get into, because it's quite upsetting. Oh, it's. It's kind of like what you said. Men felt they were being targeted by women stepping outside of the box that they had made for them. And this is where we start to see that intersectional bit tie in a little bit more. Records of intersectional, you know, discrimination are not great for the time, but we can do some digging. So, for example, upper and middle class women could become nuns and were thought to be safe from becoming witches because they were so holy. But if you weren't a nun, there was a chance of being a witch. Like a big chance. And once you started that witchy process, you couldn't go back. So.
[00:53:41] Speaker B: The witch ification process has begun.
[00:53:45] Speaker A: That's amazing.
So we see an intersection of if you're poor, you're more likely to be a witch because only upper and middle class women could become nuns. Or they were just kind of protected anyway by their purity as wealthy, I don't know, divine people.
[00:54:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think I read somewhere where it was. I think I read somewhere where it was like, even if, like, a richer woman was accused, and it would basically just get swept into the carpet. What?
[00:54:15] Speaker A: That's so surprising. That. So weird.
[00:54:17] Speaker B: Like power and privilege, right? Oh, my God, what a surprise.
[00:54:23] Speaker A: Right.
And this leads us into. I think that more intersectional side is so much more obvious in the latter aspects of the actual active witch hunts, which ended kind of in the 1700s. So in the late 1600s, there were witches in Bidford in England, which were basically just poor women on the streets who had. Whether they, like, lost their husbands, they were really old.
Maybe they were just spinsters, which means you're like 26 and don't have kids and. Or a husband. And they, like, essentially had to huddle together to protect against assault, because that was so common at the time. These were women on the fringe. They weren't owned by a man. Maybe a bit eccentric. They would all be blamed as being witches. So, for example, like, oh, my crops were flooded the other day. It's because I didn't get that. Give that evil beggar lady money when she asked for it, and now she cursed me. That was quite common. The Salem witch trials, which I briefly touched on, was a lot about property.
And so as the active witch trials ended, it became more about. Less about religion and more secular, essentially. So that's kind of, I think, where we end the active witch trial discussion.
What are your thoughts?
[00:55:44] Speaker B: And was it. Was it kind of with the, I guess, uprising, if you like, of Science, which kind of stopped some of these accusations. Was that something that kind of coincided with it, do you know?
[00:56:00] Speaker A: Or a lot of people think that. I think I had a note about that somewhere. Let me try and find it.
[00:56:08] Speaker B: Because I think something that just stands out to me, like, throughout this whole conversation is again, just around how there seems to be so little logic in terms of a lot of the decisions and a lot of the assumptions that are being made. And that, I suppose, like, potentially something like science is maybe like this kind of shift in mindset and less a shift away, I suppose, from more religious ways of thinking.
[00:56:36] Speaker A: So if we look back at how science was formed, it's very anti nature and anti woman. Actually, something we want to talk about next time is how much they are tied together and how witchcraft was used to almost like, tackle both nature and women at the same time. And so I don't think the enlightenment helped negate the witch trials. It was actually made it worse in certain ways. And so, like, some people think that enlightenment helped the ending of the witch trials, but actually it just made it more, like, more secular, more ingrained in society, but it was less active, if that makes sense.
[00:57:16] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, yeah.
[00:57:18] Speaker A: I mean, think about our. Well, the book we use.
[00:57:21] Speaker B: Oh, well.
[00:57:22] Speaker A: Oh, well. Well, here we are.
[00:57:24] Speaker B: Here we are.
[00:57:25] Speaker A: Here we are.
You know, I think when we're looking for next week, because we'll try and wrap it up here in a sec. Jeez. We're like, maybe if we can get 45 minutes out of this episode, we could probably go another half an hour.
[00:57:42] Speaker B: Like, don't worry if it's only 45 minutes. That's fine.
[00:57:45] Speaker A: It's a Friday.
I think the main thing that bothers us so much is that double standard that you mentioned. So are we these all powerful beings that can corrupt like that can control the weather to try and murder a king, or are we too feeble and weak to learn magic? That's the question.
[00:58:09] Speaker B: Definitely. Definitely the former. I mean, I'd go the former if possible, but, you know.
[00:58:14] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that'll see the thing is, if you are the former, then murder. But if you're the second, I'm dead.
But if you're the second, then you're super weak, so you're gonna be corrupted by the devil. So also murder.
[00:58:28] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Of course.
That makes so much sense.
[00:58:33] Speaker A: Yeah, right. God.
[00:58:34] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:58:35] Speaker A: I wonder who developed the system.
[00:58:38] Speaker B: That's a great question. What a great question.
[00:58:41] Speaker A: It's just something about those double standards that we talk about a lot.
[00:58:46] Speaker B: I think that's probably like you said there. I think the main thing is just the frustration around the double standards and the lack of logic that goes into this and just. And ultimately just the. Yeah, how.
I don't know, there's not even a proper word to like explain how horrifically like these women were treated. But I. But like, the more you look into it and like you say, like the numbers on it are absolutely wild and it's not even accounting for everybody. The way that they were killed and the way that we were treated is absolutely horrendous and it would just be absolutely terrifying to be around in this time. Right. And it's just bizarre that this stuff happened. It feels like fantasy, really.
[00:59:34] Speaker A: Yeah. That's such a good. It does feel like something that shouldn't be in real life. I'm going to sum up your assessment of it as stupid and evil.
Yeah, I agree.
So just to kind of lead us into next week's episode where we're going to talk about how this whole situation impacts us today, how old school ideas around witches impact us now. Touching on both history and the modern age, just recognizing that all women, even those who weren't accused of being witches, felt the effects of these witch hunts. So this is where you get this. It kind of like induced a lot of women to feeling the need to be discreet, to not make waves, to be very docile. It also really persuaded a lot of women of their own guilt. You know, like, we really believe that we have this fundamental wickedness that allows us to become this if we're weak, too weak.
And so you can see how that starts impacting people and you know, in the 1800s and 1900s and so on, I mean, we're not that far removed from it. And and importantly, while women, you know, from like maybe around the 1100s or so, women didn't have much autonomy because that's around the time when marriage started to be like, oh, women are, you know, traded for some cows as property and all that kind of fun stuff. They did have like a small amount. Your face right now. Laura's just getting so pissed.
[01:01:03] Speaker B: Like, cows. Yeah, I do love a cow. But, you know.
[01:01:07] Speaker A: You know. Yeah, but still.
But still, yeah, women did have that little bit amount of freedom. So for example, the beer ladies. Why can't I remember?
[01:01:22] Speaker B: What's the new name?
[01:01:23] Speaker A: Why can't I remember their name? I don't know. Ale wives.
Yeah. Yeah.
[01:01:28] Speaker B: Well, I mean, apparently according to one source, like who really?
[01:01:31] Speaker A: I mean, I feel like Oxford maybe knows a little bit more than me. But. But also, I think they're also a little problematic in their historical roots. So I think beer ladies, it's fine.
Anyway, it's evident in things like midwifery, the beer ladies, and things like that that women did have these kind of small bits of freedom. They were important members of society that provided a lot of value in their kind of that active work. But also, obviously, keeping in mind that women provide essential value in the free labor and heavy quotes that they do, because basically they're doing a shit ton of work for free anyway.
By the 1800s, the idea of married women as property was universal law throughout Europe and America. The idea that women had no jurisdictional rights, they had no right to own their own property. This is when the witch hunts were finally over. But all these things occurred, so women couldn't have property, they couldn't vote. So at this point, the witch hunts had served their purpose. So I think that's the freaky thing about this. Well, one of the many freaky things about this whole thing. And I think that's where we'll probably pick up next week.
[01:02:46] Speaker B: Yeah. What a way to bring a woman down.
[01:02:48] Speaker A: I know. And the vibe of our podcast.
So maybe I should have thought about something more exciting.
What's good? It's almost Halloween.
[01:03:02] Speaker B: It is nearly Halloween.
Yeah. Dress up as a witch. Or not.
[01:03:07] Speaker A: Or not. Well, I'm looking forward to next week's episode where we're gonna have kind of that discussion. And yeah, we're so bad at ending. We gotta figure something.
[01:03:20] Speaker B: What is an ending? We could just keep talking. Instead, we shall end.
[01:03:25] Speaker A: The whole reason we started a podcast is because we don't know how to shut up when we're talking to each other.
[01:03:33] Speaker B: But, yeah, so that was that for today and hope you found it interesting. I think. Yeah, I think it's interesting and scary to make some of these links. But, yeah, as we're moving into Halloween and seeing witches around, I think it's kind of cool to. Yeah. Consider a little bit more about where that's coming from. Yeah, we'll see you next time.
[01:03:52] Speaker A: See you next week.
[01:03:53] Speaker B: Where we talk about. Yeah. The present day.
Do we need to talk about socials or not?
[01:03:58] Speaker A: Oh, shit.
[01:03:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:04:02] Speaker A: We're so good at this, guys. I thought we were getting better, but.
[01:04:06] Speaker B: We need to write this down.
[01:04:08] Speaker A: I need to, like, put something big on my, like, computer screen or something you can find us on. But why pod on TikTok and Instagram? You can find me at Dr. Kristen on the same. And Laura remains elusive.
[01:04:22] Speaker B: Whoa. Like a ghost.
[01:04:26] Speaker A: The end.
[01:04:28] Speaker B: Bye.
