← Woo Woo with Rachel Dratch
Woo Woo with Rachel Dratch
Rachel Christ-Doane: Salem Witch Panic - Pt II
01:01:34
We continue our discussion of the Salem Witch Trials picking up at the height of the frenzy and their eventual conclusion. Also, more about witches and magic in lore and history. And have you heard about a “witch cake”? The ingredients may not exactly entice you!
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- [00:00]
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- [00:21]
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- [00:48]
Rachel Crist
Experian.
- [00:51]
Rachel Dratch
Hello and welcome to the show.
- [00:52]
Irene Bremis
Joining us now for part two of our interview with the director of education.
- [00:57]
Rachel Dratch
Of the Salem Witch Museum, Rachel Crist. So if you're just joining us, please make sure to listen to last week's.
- [01:04]
Irene Bremis
Episode, part one, because right now we're.
- [01:06]
Rachel Dratch
Diving headfirst into the height of witch.
- [01:09]
Irene Bremis
Panic in Salem and it's. It's not going well, let's just put it that way. There's madness happening, but you got to listen to part one to see how all this madness built up and spun out of control. So, fascinating interview with Rachel. And in this episode, we move on.
- [01:26]
Rachel Dratch
From the Salem witch trials to talk.
- [01:28]
Irene Bremis
About perception of witches throughout history into modern times times. We also talk about, oh, this is kind of interesting. Sort of the history of magic, or woo woo, as we call it, and.
- [01:39]
Rachel Dratch
Even delve into the wizard of Oz.
- [01:41]
Irene Bremis
So please enjoy part two. A lot of fascinating material here. But again, listen to part one first. And now, yes, we're picking this back up and we're just, we're just jumping right in. You'll see what I mean. Okay, Enjoy the show.
- [02:02]
Rachel Dratch
Welcome to Woo Woo with Rachel Dratch, the podcast that explores the unexplained with humor and curiosity.
- [02:16]
Irene Bremis
So the last day of hanging was that eight day eight people. And then what made this draw to a close?
- [02:22]
Rachel Crist
So by the time the September hangings have happened, there has been increasing public skepticism all the way through the events, even before the trials happen. That same minister, Cotton Mather, who, who says, don't use the Lord's prayer test at George Burroughs hangings, he advises the court before they start, and he says, you know, don't use that spectral evidence or don't put Too much emphasis on it. It's not reliable. The devil can transform himself into innocent people. So he's advising them to use caution from the beginning. And there's letters and petitions written through the trials by important men of the colony and by people in prison as well as people writing on their behalf, you know, petitions with. There's one woman from Salisbury who has a petition, 115 names on it, of people saying, she's not a witch, she's a good woman. You know, so that public criticism is there. It's just getting louder as time goes on. So finally. Yeah, exactly. Finally. By September, late September, it's becoming clear that the public mood is against the trials. And then, of course, we also have the accusation of the governor's wife in the fall. So her specter is cited. And while that's not, you know, she's never arrested, nothing actually comes of it. There's been a lot of criticism of specters can impersonate innocent people. And so this is like proof of that for the governor. Right? I know my wife's not a witch. So if they're seeing her specter, maybe we shouldn't have been using this spectral evidence this whole time. So he disbands the Court of Oyer and Terminer, that emergency court. But there's still people in jail waiting to be tried. And there's actually a couple of people who have been convicted by the earlier court who are waiting to have their trials or their executions. Two of them being women who are pregnant. Elizabeth Proctor of the Crucible is one of them. And the reason why they haven't been hanged is because they're waiting until they give birth, because it's thought that the child is innocent. So they're gonna wait for them to give bir in prison and then execute them. So they still have to wait through the, you know, as things start to get colder. November, December, Finally, January of 1693, Massachusetts has got its, you know, charter together again, so they can form a real superior court. And it's actually the same court, superior court, that we continue to use in Massachusetts to this day, the one that was formed in 1693. So it's the longest running court in North American history, which is neat. Neat being a relative term. But so in 1693, with this new, more reasonable court, they try the remaining people in prison and they don't use spectral evidence anymore. So without it, basically all of the cases fall apart immediately. But they still have a couple of people, you know, with these convictions hanging over them, and they have a couple People convicted by the new court. Three women who had confessed earlier because of the pressure, because of the, you know, there was this thought that if you confessed like Tituba, you would be kept alive in prison. So these are earlier confessions that now in this new court are taken seriously. So actually, another hanging day is scheduled for February, and the governor steps in in late January. And he says, enough. This has to be over. We are done with this. And he issues last minute pardons to everybody. So from that time, the jails slowly start to empty. Nobody else is convicted.
- [05:42]
Guest or Co-host
I know what it sounds like to me, pardoning the guilt. You know, suddenly it hit home and now he's pardoning everyone.
- [05:48]
Rachel Crist
Yeah. So the governor seems to realize a mistake has been made. But the chief justice of the court, William Stoughton, really seems to have believed what they were doing was right and just. And that there really was this crisis. So he is really angry when. When he pardons people, he like, storms. He throws like a temper tantrum and storms out of the room and he says, you know, oh, we were in a way to clear the land of all these witches. So he basically goes to his grave maintaining that what he did was in the best interest of. And these really were witches. But that's pretty contrary to the public mood. Like, right away, it's understood that innocent people were accused of witchcraft if not executed. And as time goes on, that idea gets louder and louder. And as we talked about, there are reparation payments in 1711. So as 20 years later the government acknowledges these people were innocent, was it.
- [06:37]
Irene Bremis
Thought at the time, like, as this word started to spread or whatever, was it thought like, oh, these freaking Salem crazies? Like, was it contemporary? I mean, I guess he said some people still stuck to their guns about it, but was there like a. What the hell is up with Salem in the time?
- [06:52]
Rachel Crist
So pretty much immediately afterwards. So the governor enacts a publication ban when he disbands the court of Warrior interpreter. He basically says, you can't talk about the Salem witch trials publicly. Let it go. And he says that he does this because he doesn't want to ignite an inextinguishable flame. And it basically has the opposite effect. Right? Because if you tell people not to talk about something, they're obviously going to talk about it. So it becomes pretty obvious very quickly that the Salem witch trials were a miscarriage of justice. And you start to see this, like, metaphor of Salem being used in the 18th century, in the 1700s, the metaphor we're familiar with today, like, you're behaving like they did in Salem. Witch hunt. You know, that's. That is something that's used in the 1800 or in the 1700s. 1800s. Right away, during a smallpox epidemic in Boston in the 1720s, they actually start arguing for inoculation. It's the first use of inoculation in our country's history, which is obviously.
- [07:49]
Rachel Dratch
Here we go.
- [07:50]
Rachel Crist
I know, right?
- [07:51]
Guest or Co-host
Here we go.
- [07:51]
Irene Bremis
Not to make this political, but very cyclical.
- [07:55]
Guest or Co-host
Very cyclical.
- [07:56]
Rachel Crist
So it's the foundation of vaccinations. And Cotton Mather, again, our friend Cotton Mather, who's the one who says, don't use the Lord's Prayer test. He's the one who says, you know, I've heard that this could be effective. And they actually inoculate a bunch of people and save lives during this smallpox outbreak. But the way that they're, you know, there's a lot of people who are really angry about it at the time. And the way that they're criticizing Cotton Mather is saying, you know, comparing his behavior to the Salem witch trials. And it's the, you know, you're a witch hunter. You know, you're acting as they did in Salem, irrationally, superstitiously, illogically. So that rhetoric is around immediately, and it just keeps going.
- [08:35]
Irene Bremis
I'm confused. He was arguing for inoculations, but then people were.
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Rachel Crist
People didn't want to inoculate. Right. You know, so them. So they're saying, yeah, literally the first anti vaxxers. Not to go. So they're political, but so them criticizing him, saying we should use inoculation, they're like, well, he supported the Salem witch.
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Irene Bremis
Trial, so what does he know? Okay, so he lost his credibility of that.
- [08:56]
Rachel Crist
Yeah, but they're criticizing, like, the phrasing of it is like, you behave as they did in Salem, with Salem being a metaphor for like superstitious behavior or rational behavior. And that metaphor keeps being used. It's. John Adams references it during the American Revolution. It's brought up during the Civil War. Like that metaphor.
- [09:16]
Guest or Co-host
Like a witch hunt.
- [09:17]
Rachel Crist
Yeah, like a witch hunt. You know, like, that begins right away and it sticks in American memory.
- [09:23]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
Wow.
- [09:24]
Guest or Co-host
This is also fascinating. So these tragedies and killings were halted when it affected the governor and because it hit him at home. Right.
- [09:33]
Irene Bremis
But is that his wife was one reason?
- [09:35]
Rachel Crist
It's not the one. So it's a combination of things. But that's a big reason.
- [09:39]
Guest or Co-host
That's a big, sizable reason.
- [09:40]
Rachel Crist
Right. And also, I mean, on a grander scale, what happened is the Salem Witch Trials had to touch your life specifically for people to start saying, ooh, maybe this isn't necessary or something's wrong here. And that happened again and again in small. You know, the governor's just the biggest example, right? But John Ha, who's a minister from Beverly, is initially very pro the witch trials. He thinks it's all real. He thinks it's all necessary. Later in the year, his pregnant wife is accused of witchcraft. His specter is named, and he may have been becoming skeptical already, but that's pointed to as the that's the thing that changes his mind definitively. What happened to her?
- [10:17]
Irene Bremis
Did she.
- [10:18]
Rachel Crist
No, she's never. Nothing happens to her because again, he's too important really. And also she's named in November again.
- [10:24]
Guest or Co-host
So it's a political gross.
- [10:26]
Irene Bremis
This is crazy how it just like it makes you see what everything today as like that's humans instead of humans. We're just in this particular time, but the cycles are the same.
- [10:37]
Rachel Crist
Yep.
- [10:41]
Rachel Dratch
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- [10:59]
Irene Bremis
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- [11:11]
Rachel Dratch
All by myself from scratch. Well, Tovala has bailed me out of so many meals per week.
- [11:16]
Irene Bremis
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- [11:22]
Rachel Dratch
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- [12:48]
Irene Bremis
Going back. This was mentioned in our tour last night that the sheriff and his nephew were very brutal and that there was like torture in the.
- [12:57]
Rachel Crist
In Salem, there's two methods of torture that are used that we have documentation of. So Giles Corey is the elderly man who's pressed to death under heavy stones. We heard about that. Yeah. And then there's a couple of younger prisoners, like teenagers, who are tied neck and heels, which I'm actually still not entirely clear on how that works. But it was something that was incredibly painful and it would make, like, blood rushed to your head, I guess. So the quote is that, like, they were tied in that way until blood gushed out of their noses and then they confessed. But those are the only documented incidents of torture being used during the Salem witch trials. If you look at the. Again, the documents themselves, the evidence of what the jails looked like, the Salem jail was a pretty ordinary structure. It was a wooden structure. It's not subterranean, so it's not in the ground. It's not. There are no, like, cells. Yes. Cells underground. And they're common cells. So there's a couple of cells per floor. There's two floors. And it looks like the only, like, I mean, there's so many people getting stuffed into these jails. At a certain point it becomes uncomfortable. But they're separating the confessed witches from the non confessed witches. Everybody else is together, though. So, like, the witchcraft suspects are in prison cells with regular prisoners, like pirates, people who are prisoners of war, things like that. And men and women seem to be imprisoned together, which is just how jails operated at this time. So the prison conditions are horrifying. Again, this is something that I've been researching a lot because I focus on Dorothy. Good. And the more you learn about it, the more dark it gets because. So our former director of education, who's a wonderful woman whose name is Alison Di Mario, who's now passed, she has this amazing quote that's the Salem witch trials. You don't need to sensationalize because the truth is sensational enough. Right? Like you don't need to make up stories about the Salem witch trials. What really happened is dark enough, you know, so they're jammed in cells that are dirt floored, lice ridden, there's rats, they're not insulated at all. So they're super, super cold in the winter, super, super hot in the summer. You know, you're not allowed to wash. So they absolutely reeked. And people had to pay for their time in jail. So you had to pay off your room and board, essentially, plus a fee if you needed chains. So even if you were cleared by the court, you could not leave the jail until you paid your bill. And at least one person dies in jail in Salem, having been cleared by the court, but hasn't been able to come up with the money to pay the bill and she dies. Her name is Lydia Dustin. So again, that's what I'm saying is that the truth is dark enough.
- [15:30]
Irene Bremis
And what about the brutality of this particular sheriff and his nephew?
- [15:34]
Rachel Crist
So, yeah, they're brutal. So they're the ones. So, Sheriff? Yeah.
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Irene Bremis
Sheriff who?
- [15:41]
Rachel Crist
Sheriff George Corwin is the sheriff of the county at the time. And he's young, he's in his like late twenties, if I recall correctly.
- [15:47]
Irene Bremis
And then he said his nephew was 26.
- [15:49]
Rachel Crist
I don't know. He's the nephew. So he is the nephew of. Let me see if I'm going to remember this correctly. It's one of the magistrates, Jonathan Corwin, I want to say. Yeah, George Corwin. Jonathan Corwin. So he, you know, it's definitely nepotism that gets him this job. And so he is a, you know, a dark character because he's the one who's ransacking people's houses before they have been convicted, you know, so he's not. But is he like torturing people?
- [16:12]
Irene Bremis
Okay, that's what we got the impression.
- [16:15]
Rachel Crist
I mean, he might be involved in the two recorded cases of torture. He's involved in Giles Corey's pressing as well. So he's there for that, you know. Oh, so he's not a good guy. He's not a positive figure in the Salem witch, Charles.
- [16:27]
Irene Bremis
And then shifting gears to a more general sense, you know, you always grew up hearing about the, like, if you sink, your. Wait, what is it? If you sink, you're innocent. There's a water test. You're thrown in a pond. If you sink, you're innocent, and if you float, you're a witch, and then you're gonna die anyway. But what we saw in the museum is that that never happened here. Is that true?
- [16:44]
Rachel Crist
Not in Salem. Not in Salem, but it did happen. So it's one of those things where. So that's used in England, for example, like during Matthew Hopkins, who's their Witchfinder General, quote, unquote, who's kind of roving the English countrysides during the Civil War, finding witches for communities. He famously uses the swimming test several times. So, yeah, it is this concept. It's actually based in an older medieval court system which was operated on the idea of trial by ordeal, which basically was like, God is gonna determine your fate. So people would. And this is a much older judicial system, but quote, unquote, judicial system where they would do certain physical tests like burn you or something, and then if you healed in a certain amount of time, you were innocent. And so that's not how courts are operating by the time of the witch trials, but it's this holdover idea. So swimming witch is based on the idea that a witch is pure evil. Right. And water is good. So you throw a witch into the water. If she sinks, that means the water has accepted her. She's, you know, I say her, them, they're innocent. If they float, it means that they've been rejected by the water. You can fish them out, try them, was the idea. Use this as evidence against them and find them guilty and execute them. But it wasn't legal in, like, New England, for example, but it did still happen in the North American colonies. There's an example in Virginia of somebody undergoing the swimming test, but that person actually isn't executed. Interestingly enough, she. I feel like she fails the test. I don't. You know, I don't remember the story enough.
- [18:20]
Guest or Co-host
But anyway, when somebody floats, I mean, they could make themselves float or they can make themselves sink. Right.
- [18:26]
Rachel Crist
Well, so the idea is you're bound. Like, your hands are bound, your feet are bound.
- [18:31]
Irene Bremis
Oh, shit.
- [18:31]
Rachel Crist
This is important. This is an important detail. Yeah. So. And the dark irony of the test is if you sink, you know, while your limbs are bound in that way, you're gonna drown. You know, not always, but it's very likely you're gonna drown. So again, they did a lot of very brutal things during the Salem witch trials. The swimming test is not one of them.
- [18:51]
Irene Bremis
And then you mentioned, well, in the museum, oh, two things. The being burned at the stake. That was never here. That was in Europe.
- [18:57]
Rachel Crist
Yes, yes.
- [18:58]
Irene Bremis
And then what about this theory that was tossed around about, like there was moldy rye bread and they used a lot of rye, and there was this. And then that made everyone go crazy. But that has been dispelled in case. Well, we grew up. Not grew up. I don't really remember when that became popular, but that was a crazy little theory. Like some historian, like, I found it. But then you're saying that that was not true.
- [19:22]
Rachel Crist
Yes. So this is. We talked about how stories, you know, come in and out of popularity. So this was proposed in the 70s by one actually undergraduate student at the time. She published an article in Science magazine that said, hey, maybe ergot caused the Salem witch trials. So ergot is a fungus that grows on rye or wheat. If you ingest it, it will make you very sick, but it also has this range of symptoms that include like convulsions, hallucinations, you know, things that kind of in some ways mirror what the so called bewitched people are experiencing during the Salem witch trials. So she says, hey, maybe that's what's actually causing these witchcraft accusations. So literally months later, historians of the Salem witch trials come back with their own article that says, yeah, but that doesn't actually make sense if you look at the primary sources, because for a couple of reasons. So, number one, everybody in the house is eating the same bread, right? Same grain. Source. Why is it that in a house with Samuel Paris's wife, two enslaved adults, two other kids, and Betty and Abigail, only Betty and Abigail get sick. Why doesn't anybody else in the house get sick? And then you see the affliction jump to another house where Ann Putnam Jr. Has a bunch of siblings. She's the oldest of quite a number of siblings. Why is she the only one to get sick? Right? And then the. And the affliction just jumps house to house, over quite a big area of land.
- [20:47]
Rachel Dratch
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- [21:47]
Rachel Crist
Again, Andover is miles from here and you start to see affliction, you know, this mysterious illness show up there with no, like, traceable pattern between Salem and there. So anyway, if it was spoiled crops, it would be much clearer, right? There would be like a. It would be limited to a certain area and it would behave in a much more predictable way. And then the same thing with, you see people being able to turn the illness on and off as they saw fit. You know, I'm struck by your own infliction now in the courtroom. But then I can snap out of it and I'm fine. You know, like, so again, if it's a real illness, people wouldn't be able to turn it on and turn it off in that way. So anyway, there's a lot of reasons why it just doesn't hold up. And the person who originally put forward the idea, she's not a historian of the Salem Witch Trials. So she didn't even account for the fact that the Salem Witch Trials impact people outside of Salem, that the affliction moves outside of the geographic area of Salem. So again, it's very flimsy and it just doesn't work. But ergot is like a chemical, you know, you extract from ergot to make lsd. It's a basis of LSD is my understanding. So at the time the wire services pick up this story, LSD causes the Salem Witch Trials. Girls tripping on hallucinogenic bread. And because it's the 70s, that's such a, like, people are so concerned about LSD and talking about LSD that it just goes viral immediately. So even though the sale in Wichita historians are, you know, kind of screaming at the top of their lungs, no, actually, this doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. It just enters popular culture and sticks there much in the same way that the land grab Theory, you see, the historians of the sandwich. I was going, no, actually, that doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. But it's so popular, you can't really get a hold of the pop culture monster. So ever since then, documentaries, TV shows, podcasts, will often include the Urgot theory still as a plausible explanation of why the Salem witch trials happened. And that's always a good indication that they didn't do them, didn't do their homework, you know, if they still have it as a plausible explanation, because there are many plausible explanations for the affliction. That one in particular, though, has just been really thoroughly debunked, shifting to, like.
- [24:00]
Irene Bremis
Witches in witches in culture. So we talked to Gloria Steinem, and she had this whole theory that she was talking about, like, women who were practicing their own, like, basically alternative medicine. And maybe there is something to this because you talked about the church versus alternatives. And, I mean, she talked a lot about women who were performing abortions or, like, administering medicinal things or help to other women.
- [24:33]
Rachel Dratch
That.
- [24:33]
Irene Bremis
That was, like, one of the bases for. She might have been talking about European, though. Not here. But anyway, is there any truth to that? And just in terms of witches as kind of what Irene alluded to at the beginning, like, as a way of, like, making women othered and accused?
- [24:50]
Rachel Crist
Yes. So, oh, my God. Not to contradict Gloria's side.
- [24:57]
Irene Bremis
I mean, it sounded a little.
- [24:59]
Rachel Crist
As a women's historian, that feels like it goes against all of my instincts. No.
- [25:06]
Irene Bremis
I know.
- [25:06]
Rachel Crist
Yeah. There's some truth to it. So. So women who were midwives or practicing medicine could be targeted during witch trials. And that is true.
- [25:17]
Irene Bremis
And like, this is European.
- [25:18]
Rachel Dratch
Okay.
- [25:19]
Rachel Crist
Yeah. Speaking more broadly about the witch trials period, which, again, is like 1400 to about the mid-1700s. So it's a pretty. It's a long period of time. And we're talking about all of Europe into the New England colonies. Right. Or into the North American colonies. So it's a big area. You know, we're speaking in more broad generalizations now, but one of the things that could attract witchcraft suspicions were women who were independently employed, women who had their own source of money coming in. And also, even more importantly, witchcraft accusations follow a misfortune, something bad happens. So a midwife comes in. Right. And takes care of a mother in labor, or takes care of a infant, and the child dies, the mother dies. You're a grieved family. Now, who are you going to project that fear at? You could just take it and feel the sadness, or you can say, you Know what? That midwife who came in here was actually a witch, and that's why my child died. And all those stories about witches that we said were recycled from earlier scapegoating stories. Oftentimes people would say witches kill babies and eat babies and, you know, things like that. So that was something that could attract suspicion. But I will say that was made into a bigger element of the story in scholarship of years past. We kind of need to walk it back a little bit. In the modern day, it's not that the majority of people accused of witchcraft were midwives, which has sometimes been claimed, but it's one of those factors that could make you more vulnerable to being accused of witchcraft. And it goes back to that basic, you know, women who are different in some way or who are in the wrong place in the wrong time and can attract anger, suspicion, jealousy, you know, whatever. Those people became vulnerable to witchcraft accusations. So in that way, that is correct. Yeah, she.
- [27:08]
Guest or Co-host
I mean, it's like you said, if this midwife, you know, delivered your baby and the baby died, then, you know, they needed somebody to blame.
- [27:17]
Rachel Crist
Right.
- [27:17]
Guest or Co-host
You know, it's like, you want to sue somebody today, you want to sue somebody, There's a lawsuit with the hospital. Like, they needed somebody to blame.
- [27:24]
Irene Bremis
But Daria was talking, like. She talked like abortion. Is that what you're saying?
- [27:27]
Guest or Co-host
We're not talking about abortion. She was talking about herbs that would induce abortions.
- [27:32]
Irene Bremis
Oh, yes, that's what she talked about.
- [27:33]
Guest or Co-host
That's what she talked about.
- [27:34]
Rachel Crist
Yeah. So abortion. I'm also now speaking more so from a colonial historian perspective. There was an idea at the time that it wasn't as serious if you took certain herbs before the quickening, which means before you felt a baby move for the first time. And this is drawing back on a very much older time in my academic training, so I'm not gonna it fully correct, but, you know, were women administering abortions, and that's what's causing them to be accused of witchcraft? Not to my knowledge. The origins of modern witchcraft really misinterprets the history of witchcraft, like, badly. So they say a lot of things that are incredibly inaccurate about, like, they. The modern witchcraft movement starts by saying everybody who's accused of witchcraft during the witch trials period was practicing a fertility religion that goes against Christianity, and that's why they were accused of witchcraft. That's not real. There's nothing to support that at all. And then there's other things, like, yeah, like, midwives made up the vast majority of people who were executed for witchcraft. And they're all practicing abortions and, you know, midwifery skills. And then they said things like, yeah, 8 million, 9 million people were executed for witchcraft. So we've now walked that path. You know, there's the study of European witch trials really doesn't, like, in an academic sense, doesn't really kick off until, like, the late 20th century. So since that time, we've learned a lot more. And those numbers have gotten lower and lower and lower about how many people actually were executed. So now the number's like 50,000 is the number most people are comfortable with. Do you know who Mary Daly is?
- [29:05]
Irene Bremis
No.
- [29:05]
Rachel Crist
She was like a really extreme modern witch slash feminist. And she wrote some really historically inaccurate things about the witch trials, like in service of the women's movement, you know, so the core of it all is really beautiful. Like, women coming together and looking at this period of horrifying injustice against women, particularly, like outspoken, mouthy women, you know, like drawing on those traumatizing pieces of history. That's beautiful. But then just kind of like running with the history in whatever way fits your narrative.
- [29:33]
Irene Bremis
That's a really good point. I like how many times we've used the word mouthy in this.
- [29:37]
Rachel Crist
I love it. It's my favorite way to describe people. You know, I really think about them in terms of, like, it's women who are just like, not holding up. Sassy, you know, Sassy.
- [29:46]
Irene Bremis
The Irenes of the world.
- [29:47]
Rachel Dratch
Yeah.
- [29:47]
Irene Bremis
You know, seriously, I was gonna ask. Well, I was gonna change the topic a teeny little bit. What did you have?
- [29:53]
Guest or Co-host
I just wanted to ask about the. I wanted to ask about, like, the herbs. You know, like you said, everybody was practicing.
- [30:01]
Rachel Crist
Oh, there's a.
- [30:01]
Irene Bremis
There's a magic.
- [30:02]
Rachel Crist
Yeah.
- [30:02]
Irene Bremis
There's a little exhibit in the museum that has all these herbs hanging.
- [30:06]
Rachel Crist
Yeah.
- [30:06]
Guest or Co-host
No, some people were practicing and they didn't get accused of witchcraft. So it wasn't about the practice itself. It was just the misfortune that followed. If you were practicing.
- [30:15]
Rachel Crist
Yeah. And this is where the story gets even more complicated for us.
- [30:19]
Irene Bremis
This is episode three.
- [30:20]
Rachel Crist
Let's make it.
- [30:21]
Irene Bremis
We're even looking this. We're cutting this into three episodes. No, cuz I have more questions too.
- [30:36]
Rachel Crist
What we talked about earlier, right. We're getting ourselves oriented into the history of witchcraft. Another thread that's really important to this story is the history of magic. Because people have believed in magic for thousands of years. Every civilization has had something that they would categorize as magic. And when we say magic.
- [30:55]
Irene Bremis
Yeah, that's why we're here.
- [30:56]
Rachel Dratch
Literally.
- [30:57]
Rachel Crist
Okay, so when we say magic, we mean, like rituals, traditions, things that make you feel like you can exert influence or control in a world that is largely beyond our control. Right.
- [31:06]
Irene Bremis
Wait a minute, hold on. Say that again. That's the basis of this all.
- [31:12]
Rachel Crist
Yeah. So magic being a set of rituals or traditions that make you feel like you have control or influence in a world that is largely beyond our control.
- [31:22]
Irene Bremis
And pause to take that in. Listeners take it in.
- [31:26]
Rachel Dratch
That's why we're here.
- [31:28]
Irene Bremis
It's all beyond our control. Trying to control one little piece of something exacerbating ocd. Continue, continue.
- [31:36]
Rachel Crist
So the history of magic goes very much hand in hand with the history of medicine, right? Because people would use certain rituals and traditions to try to drive out illness or promote fertility or help in childbirth, things like that. So people have been practicing magic for, again, centuries, thousands of years. By the time the witch trials begin. There's now, in the year, you know, the centuries leading up to the European witch trials period, the church has started to crack down on this. They're like, you know what, you folk populists have to stop using magic. It doesn't jive with the church and our rules. So they say, you know, any magic is, you know, demonic, inspired. So because before this, you had been allowed to use magic pretty openly as long as you weren't using it to hurt other people. And so in the medieval period, the church says, enough with that, that's done. But of course, people continue using magic. You know, these are centuries old traditions, deeply ingrained. And actually we continue to use certain magical traditions from this period today. The fact that we think horseshoes are lucky is something that's based in the witch trials period. That's something that takes on.
- [32:44]
Rachel Dratch
Tell us. I love this little stuff.
- [32:45]
Rachel Crist
Yeah, the horseshoes used, like, you would nail them above your door. And it was because iron was thought to be very magically protective, and the horseshoe itself was just thought to have protective qualities. So you would nail it above your door, and it was thought to keep evil forces from entering your home. And of course, we still see horseshoes as good luck symbols today. Right. So it's impossible really to fully drive this out. And basically, as long as you weren't, like, shoving it in the church's face, people still, you know, used magic and they did not see themselves as witches because a witch is a person who has sold their soul to the devil. So you wouldn't have, you know, thought of yourself as being a witch if you're just using these magical traditions. In fact, People often used magic to find witches, you know, or to drive witches away. So we have something in our second exhibit which is called the Bellarmine Jug, which originally was a jug used to transport alcohol primarily from Germany into England. And they have, like a crude human face carved into the, like, lip of the jug. Jug, or the neck of the jug. And people started using these jugs for folk magic. So you would fill them with different items that were thought to have magical qualities, like iron, like pieces of wood, things like that. And then also things that were, like, reminiscent of a human. So fingernails, urine, hair. And then you'd take the jug and you would bury it in your doorway or your hearth, or you would boil the contents over a fire. And it was thought this treatment would either repel witches away from you or hurt a witch who was trying to hurt you. It would basically keep your house safe from witchcraft trying to come in. So they're using magic to protect themselves from witchcraft. And those are different things for them at that time.
- [34:25]
Guest or Co-host
And they still use them in religion and even culturally, you being Greek and me being Greek, I don't know how much you know about Greek culture, but, you know, hair, you don't leave your hair in a place that's undesirable.
- [34:37]
Rachel Crist
Like these traditions. These. Yeah, I mean, these.
- [34:39]
Guest or Co-host
Still, the root of everything that she's saying is actually it stems from, again from like the Bible, like biblical, the Torah, whatever. Like with Samson, you know, when they cut. Was it Samson?
- [34:52]
Rachel Crist
Yeah.
- [34:52]
Guest or Co-host
When he cut his hair. The strength of hair. And just having these, you know, these superstitions that still actually continue to live both in Catholicism, Greek Orthodoxy and in several cultures.
- [35:08]
Rachel Crist
Yeah. So it's one of those things that you can't. These are just long held beliefs. You can't get rid of them. You can't try, as the church might or, you know, whatever, the leadership of the time. So even during the Salem witch trials, there are multiple examples of. In the early part of the witch trials, before the accusations have even been lodged against anyone, they make something called a witch cake, which is supposed to help them find a witch.
- [35:32]
Irene Bremis
Now, I just did hold up my ears. You just pricked up.
- [35:36]
Rachel Crist
Well, you will not be interested in this cake. Let me tell you. Let me tell you the ingredients before you get excited.
- [35:42]
Irene Bremis
So far, I'm game. Go on, let's hear it.
- [35:45]
Rachel Crist
So basically you would take rye meal and then the urine of the people who were. Who were thought to be bewitched.
- [35:54]
Irene Bremis
Okay.
- [35:55]
Rachel Crist
Because in the body of the person bewitched, it was thought the Evil magic is in them, right? So it's gonna be in their urine. So you mix the rye meal and the urine together into like a crude cake, and then you bake it on hot ashes and you feed it to a dog. And the idea is treating the urine in this way is going to hurt the witch who cast that magic. And it's going to draw them out of hiding or you're going to be able to identify them because it's going to hurt them. Obviously, it does not work in 1692. And actually it makes things worse because it seems like once they've done this witch cake experiment, which is done without the approval of the minister, he is enraged when he comes home and finds that this has been done. It seems like it actually makes the affliction worse.
- [36:33]
Irene Bremis
It's a piss cake. Yeah, okay, sorry, go ahead.
- [36:36]
Rachel Crist
But it seems like it makes the girls more afraid that they're hurt by witchcraft. And it's shortly after the witchcake experiment that the two more girls become sick.
- [36:43]
Irene Bremis
That was an actual like that was done with the girls.
- [36:46]
Rachel Crist
And Tituba is the one who makes the cake under the instructions of a neighbor, comes by and tells tituba, make this. It's gonna help the girls. And the neighbor, though she fully admits it was her idea, it was all done at her direction, never gets accused of witchcraft. Tituba, however, is one of the first people accused of witchcraft. And isn't that predictable as us.
- [37:05]
Rachel Dratch
Yes.
- [37:05]
Irene Bremis
Oh, my God. It all goes kiss the brown person.
- [37:08]
Guest or Co-host
Exactly.
- [37:09]
Irene Bremis
Just like today, right?
- [37:15]
Rachel Dratch
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- [38:43]
Irene Bremis
Wow. You mentioned the wizard of Oz as sort of like shaping how we think of witches now. Could you just talk a little bit about that?
- [38:57]
Rachel Crist
Oh my God. This is a whole other podcast. No, but I'll do it short. I'll do it short. So basically, the wizard of Oz is originally the wonderful wizard of Oz. The book. It's written by L. Frank Baum. He's writing it in like the 1890s. It's published in 1900, and it initially becomes a very popular children's book, like right away. It is considered today to be America's first fairy tale. Very important. Obviously, we all know the wizard of Oz and then it becomes, of course, even more of an American classic when the film is produced in 1939. That book is the first book to introduce good witches into American popular culture in a major sense. So L. Frank Baum introduces Glinda and the Good Witch of the north, who are actually separate characters in the original book.
- [39:37]
Rachel Dratch
Oh, wait a second.
- [39:38]
Irene Bremis
Glinda is separate from the Good Witch of the North.
- [39:41]
Rachel Crist
So there's four witches in Oz and they're all separate. So they condense her into one person for the movie. But the Good Witch in the north is kind of like a matronly, kindly older lady. And Glinda is like a younger, beautiful, kind of traditionally stunning woman. And what's really interesting about the good witches is L. Frank Baum's mother in law is a woman named Matilda Jocelyn Gage. And this is where I will reel it in, I promise. But she is an.
- [40:10]
Irene Bremis
Please don't reel it in.
- [40:12]
Rachel Crist
Yeah, she's an incredibly important first wave feminist. She works alongside Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, like they're a trio doing all the same projects. She gets written out of women's history because she's too radical. She is too. She wants crazy things like abolition. She's advocating for Native American rights. She's advocating for temperance. Like, she is way ahead of her time. And she's pissing off a lot of the other first wave feminists because they're like, you're being too extreme. It's too much. You're asking for too much and you're giving the movement. You're making it hard for people to sympathize with the movement. So they eventually push her out. And that is a whole other topic.
- [40:54]
Irene Bremis
Irene and I are freaking out right now.
- [40:56]
Rachel Crist
I am incredibly passionate about. We should all know the name Matilda Joselyn Gage, the way we know the name Susan B. Anthony. And it was very intentional that we don't know her name.
- [41:06]
Irene Bremis
We're freaking out because that's. Again, right now.
- [41:09]
Guest or Co-host
That's right now.
- [41:10]
Irene Bremis
It's like, don't ask for too much or don't. Don't advocate for too many people, because then you're going too far. And we don't want to hear from someone who's going too far.
- [41:20]
Guest or Co-host
Right.
- [41:21]
Rachel Crist
Anyway.
- [41:22]
Guest or Co-host
And also. And I just have to say this absolutely right, Rachel. And also, women are. There's a separation still with women when it comes to that. Like, you can speak out, but don't speak out too much.
- [41:35]
Rachel Crist
Right, Right. Yeah. Matilda, there's actually a term that was coined, I don't remember. It's sometime in the late 20th century, and it's specifically relating to women in the sciences. It's called the Matilda Effect effect. And it's when a woman's work is taken and rebranded and a woman's written out of a narrative, usually replacing her with the work of a man. And it's something that specifically is used often to describe female scientists, but obviously can be used in many other circumstances. Anyway, Matilda, where does she live?
- [42:00]
Irene Bremis
Like, what part of the country?
- [42:01]
Rachel Crist
She lives in Syracuse, New York. Okay, okay.
- [42:03]
Irene Bremis
And that's L. Frank Baum's mother in law.
- [42:06]
Rachel Crist
Yeah. And so they're very close. They really. She kind of hates him when she first meets him, but they become very close. She's very supportive of his writing career, which doesn't take off until he's a little bit older. He tries a bunch of different careers that are all unsuccessful. Finally, he's very creative and he lands on writing. And she's very supportive of it. And so he is writing the wizard of Ozer. That idea is kind of percolating. In the 1890s, Matilda Jocelyn Gage publishes a book called Women Church and State around that same time. It's her last book. She dies shortly after. And that book basically is focusing on the way that the church has mistreated women over time, which is an incredibly radical argument for that time period. But she includes a whole chapter on witchcraft. And she says specifically People who are accused of witchcraft weren't really witches. They were women who are being targeted by the church because the church has these incredibly sexist ideas that's built into the structure of the church. And that is an argument that. I mean, it's flawed in certain ways, but it's what we've talked about today. Right. She is one of the first people to say witches aren't witches, they're women who are being targeted by a society that sees them as, you know, bad or corrupt for whatever reason.
- [43:18]
Guest or Co-host
Exactly.
- [43:18]
Rachel Crist
She's way ahead of the game. Yeah.
- [43:20]
Irene Bremis
And then how. What about the wizard of Oz of it all?
- [43:23]
Rachel Crist
So this is where I start to put on my conspiracy hat. Right. But I think it's just. It's not. It's too much of a coincidence to be ignored that she writes this book hugely arguing about witchcraft and talking about how it's innocent women being targeted, innocent women being mistreated in this way. She then dies. L. Frank Baum, her beloved son in law, publishes a incredibly popular children's book that features two good witches very shortly after her death. It has been argued that she inspires those witches in the book and that he even writes it kind of as a tribute to her in some way. And there's no way to definitively prove that.
- [43:59]
Rachel Dratch
Right.
- [44:00]
Rachel Crist
But just like, look at the sequence of events, you know, and he helped distribute women church and state. Like, he's very. He knows what she's writing about. Right. Is it a coincidence that he then publishes a book that treats witches in this way, in this very unusual way for the first time?
- [44:15]
Guest or Co-host
Oh, no. We're wearing our tinfoil hats on this.
- [44:17]
Irene Bremis
Right?
- [44:17]
Rachel Dratch
Like, cool.
- [44:18]
Rachel Crist
This is where I have that conspiracy board, you know, with all the red tape. But no, seriously, I think it's a very strong argument. So that's one way the wizard of Oz very much impacts the way we think about witches. Having these good, beautiful witches that then becomes popular throughout the 20th century, right? That takes off. And now good witches are huge in pop culture. You've got Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- [44:42]
Guest or Co-host
Bewitch all these witches. You know what they have in common? They're gorgeous. Now, the root of this is vanity. And if you're not an attractive, beautiful woman, you know, you're a fucking crone and you're a horrifying witch. Right?
- [44:55]
Rachel Crist
You start to see, like, witches being portrayed as young, beautiful women, oftentimes women who are finding their own empowerment. Oftentimes it's like coming of age stories. So you Know, maybe that would have happened organically without the wizard of Oz. But the wizard of Oz definitely, you know, sets the stage for the way we started to think about good witches in the 20th century.
- [45:17]
Irene Bremis
And you said about the green.
- [45:19]
Rachel Crist
Yes. And the other big thing about the wizard of Oz is when they make the film adaptation in 1939, that is the first time we see a green skinned witch in American popular culture. And it's the reason why we think of witches as green today. So there's all kinds of weird stories out there about how like green skin comes from women who used herbs, Right. And it dyed their fingers green. That's based in nothing. You know, there's. There's no reason to believe that it's. It's Occam's Razor, right? It's actually, it makes more sense that it's just. We have this huge pop culture movie that sweeps across the United States of a green skinned witch in 1939, and now we think of witches as having green skin. And actually the reason why she has green skin is purely a creative choice for the film. The original Wicked Witch does not have green skin in the book. And they weren't going to make the Wicked Witch green initially. They actually had a different actress contracted who was going to be more like a femme fatale witch. The pictures are amazing. She has like a sequined hat and she's like beautiful and dark, you know, mysterious. And then they make the creative choice. They have Technicolor access to Technicolor, so they want to use as much color as possible. So they're like, you know what? We're going to go with a scary, haggard wicked witch with green skin. And that original actress drops out and she's got an amazing line like, I wasn't going to make myself ugly for any motion picture at that time. And Margaret Hamilton gets hired, who becomes the Wicked Witch and of course is the icon wicked witch. Like, that movie would not be what it is without Margaret Hamilton. And she has some great line about like, well, I didn't care, you know, I could be a wicked witch, you know, so. And yeah, that really changes the way we think about stereotypical witches. So the wizard of Oz has a couple of big shifts for us in American pop culture. But the thing that I always, I will never be able to resist mentioning is the Matilda Jocelyn Gage thing, because she really, I think, influences the way he writes about witches and the way that he introduces them as kind of sympathetic characters as opposed to the traditional scary monsters that are in popular culture. You know, right up until that point, though. And now I'll take the tinfoil hat off.
- [47:18]
Irene Bremis
I'm giving you the slow clap.
- [47:21]
Guest or Co-host
The slow clap.
- [47:22]
Irene Bremis
That was amazing.
- [47:24]
Guest or Co-host
Amazing.
- [47:25]
Rachel Dratch
Oh, my gosh.
- [47:25]
Rachel Crist
You guys are now witchcraft historians.
- [47:27]
Irene Bremis
That was so informative and fascinating and.
- [47:30]
Guest or Co-host
So important and so detailed.
- [47:32]
Irene Bremis
It's so. It's so interesting to talk to a real historian.
- [47:36]
Rachel Crist
It's a layered history, certainly. But I always say that, like, the. The tell of if somebody is not going to give you a great explanation is if they simplify it way too. You know, if they give you a really simple answer. Oh, it's just this. It was just that, you know, That's a good point. That's how you can tell somebody hasn't done enough homework. Because if you really know the story, you're like. Well, it was actually this, like, combination effect. You know, it's so rich, it's so deep.
- [48:02]
Irene Bremis
It's amazing how many tangents were possible in this. And we took many of them, believe me. But there's so many. No, I mean, there's so many other.
- [48:10]
Rachel Dratch
Other.
- [48:11]
Irene Bremis
So if people want to come visit the museum, it's the Salem Witch Museum.
- [48:17]
Rachel Crist
Yes.
- [48:18]
Irene Bremis
What's so funny?
- [48:20]
Guest or Co-host
We have to wrap it out somehow.
- [48:21]
Irene Bremis
Because we have to go. We have two sales. I'm sure you're so. Two hours, but this was fun. Salem Witch Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Now, Irene and I, we haven't been here since, like, a fifth grade field trip, I think. I mean, I don't remember ever, like, doing Salem. We've only been here less than 24 hours. Sadly, we can't. Can't stay longer. But we've only.
- [48:42]
Rachel Dratch
We've.
- [48:43]
Irene Bremis
We've only scratched the surface of all the things there are to see here.
- [48:46]
Rachel Crist
Yeah, it's. Salem is a lot. And the. The kind of neat thing about Salem is that the witch trials history is a really small blip in the history of Salem. Like, Salem has this incredible maritime history. Parker Brothers. The game company starts here. You know, Alexander Graham Bell makes, like, the first telephone call from here. Like, you just keep digging into Salem's history. It's incredibly rich. There's, like, Histories of Harry Houdini is here. And, you know, like. Yeah, it's.
- [49:13]
Irene Bremis
It's the witch truck. So much more.
- [49:15]
Rachel Crist
I know it's a small part of it, so obviously that's my focus, but you could spend a lifetime studying Salem.
- [49:21]
Irene Bremis
And people do as you seem to me, so. Rachel, we do. I always feel silly when we have, like, a real guest, but we do this pendulum reading at the End. I don't know if they told you.
- [49:31]
Rachel Dratch
About this, did they?
- [49:31]
Rachel Crist
They did, yeah.
- [49:32]
Irene Bremis
So now do you do any witchcraft yourself? I'm assuming no, but actually I did.
- [49:37]
Rachel Crist
I did it one time. I haven't as much anymore, but I'm pretty down with the like neo pagan stuff, you know, I think earth based religions make the most sense to me, you know, and some of these centuries old traditions make sense, you know, so I love the like seasonal altars in a home and you know, stuff that just anything that has too many rules is too much for me, which is why I don't practice my faith very much anymore. But yeah, no, I like having the. Just kind of like if it makes you feel good or in touch with something bigger, follow it. That's how I would describe my practice.
- [50:08]
Irene Bremis
Well, I guess we'll do the pendulum break.
- [50:09]
Guest or Co-host
Now.
- [50:10]
Irene Bremis
Here's the funny thing, and we're gonna mention this on the episode that comes out this week, but I lost Irene's pendulum, so. And I have to go buy her a special one in town, so you're.
- [50:20]
Rachel Crist
In the right place.
- [50:20]
Irene Bremis
It's my bird necklace instead. So if it goes this way, it's yes. And then if I say no, it goes back and forth. That's how we do it. But anyway, if you want to ask, ask. Do you have one for yourself?
- [50:32]
Guest or Co-host
No, I didn't bring one.
- [50:33]
Rachel Dratch
Okay.
- [50:33]
Guest or Co-host
Because I don't have one.
- [50:34]
Irene Bremis
If you want, if you want to ask. If you want.
- [50:37]
Rachel Dratch
Oh.
- [50:38]
Irene Bremis
If you want to ask a yes.
- [50:39]
Rachel Crist
Or no question and like I'm just asking it to like, so you're thinking.
- [50:43]
Irene Bremis
It and then you're going to reveal it.
- [50:44]
Rachel Crist
Okay.
- [50:45]
Irene Bremis
And we always tell people, don't ask anything that's going to make you sad if it's the wrong answer, like in terms of big stakes or whatever.
- [50:51]
Rachel Crist
Okay.
- [50:51]
Irene Bremis
But. Okay, so you want to ask it. Okay, here we go.
- [50:55]
Rachel Dratch
Oh.
- [50:55]
Irene Bremis
Oh. Huh. Okay, let me try that again.
- [50:58]
Guest or Co-host
Very good. Okay, here we go.
- [51:02]
Irene Bremis
Okay, now you try. Let's see what you get. Did we get.
- [51:07]
Guest or Co-host
Wait, wait.
- [51:07]
Rachel Crist
Sorry.
- [51:08]
Guest or Co-host
Let's see. I'm getting a yes.
- [51:12]
Irene Bremis
See, I got a no.
- [51:13]
Rachel Dratch
You did.
- [51:14]
Irene Bremis
Wait, I don't like. I don't like when we don't get the same answer.
- [51:17]
Guest or Co-host
No, wait a minute, wait a minute.
- [51:19]
Irene Bremis
It's been wrong a few times. Irene doesn't want me to say Irene.
- [51:24]
Rachel Crist
It'S what I said.
- [51:24]
Guest or Co-host
I can hear you, sweetie.
- [51:26]
Rachel Crist
Actually, a mixed answer answer would be very funny to this particular question. Because I thought long and hard about like, what would I ask a pendulum. Right. I Feel like I can't ask anything. Okay. Yeah.
- [51:37]
Rachel Dratch
Yeah.
- [51:37]
Rachel Crist
I feel like I can't ask anything too deep, like, because obviously, like, my. My research is, like, so sad. Right. And I. You know, I. I don't really want to, like, get into it with, like, the spirits of people that I'm really focused on and sad or, I don't know, like, really connected to right now, but Because I am a historian, we have recently been having an internal debate here at the Salem Witch Museum in our education department about how old Giles Corey was. And you're gonna laugh. So there is, like, no consensus about how old this man actually was. And it's something that we keep shifting our minds about. So for the longest time, he was thought to be 80 years old, and that was just, like, common course. And then a couple years ago, Jill, who's our assistant education director and my kind of partner in crime, she and I had found a source that made it sound like, no, he's actually 73 years old. So then that's what we were going with. He's 73. And then recently, I had made a TikTok, you know, a while ago, for the Salem Witch Museum account. And it had just, like, people had started reacting to it, saying, no, he's 80. No, he's this. No, he's that. And I had given them my standard, no, he's actually 73. Blah, blah, blah. So the long story short, there's a great author, his name is Ben Wiki, who just published a book called More Weight, which is about Giles Corey. It's a graphic novel. And he did an incredible amount of research. Research. It's beautifully illustrated. And he was at the museum the other day, and I was like, hey, how old do you think Giles Corey is? Because we've been talking about it, and he gave us a source. In the Salem church records, there is a document that indicates that he was 75 years old. No, that he was 80 years old. And then. So anyway, it led me down this long, twisting rabbit hole of, no, he's this age. No, he's that age. In the primary source sources, still no consensus. So my question was, Giles Corey, were you actually 73 years old? I don't think we're supposed to know this answer.
- [53:26]
Irene Bremis
So Penji was right.
- [53:28]
Rachel Crist
No.
- [53:28]
Irene Bremis
But I said no. And you said yes.
- [53:29]
Guest or Co-host
Yes. Because we don't know.
- [53:31]
Rachel Crist
Yeah. I think he's messing with us, to be honest. I think that the moral of the story is. So actually, one of.
- [53:38]
Irene Bremis
The moral of the story is about Penji, and that's the bottom line between Irene and myself.
- [53:44]
Rachel Crist
But.
- [53:44]
Irene Bremis
But anyway, going back. Moral of the story.
- [53:48]
Rachel Crist
In this time period, especially people who are born in the early century, people didn't necessarily know exactly how old they were. Especially if you're born in the early 1600s. So it's possible. It's possible. I can't say this with absolute authority. It's possible he didn't actually know exactly how old he was. And that could account for some of the discrepancies in the original story.
- [54:07]
Irene Bremis
That's right.
- [54:08]
Rachel Crist
So that's what. I'm gonna write that into my next research project. The pendulum says.
- [54:12]
Irene Bremis
Wait, I'm gonna ask you. Should Rachel ask a question of Giles?
- [54:16]
Guest or Co-host
My mother got three different birth certificates from Greece. She doesn't. There's three different days, and that's a common thing. When you came here to this country, all that information was kind of lost.
- [54:26]
Rachel Crist
Yep. Yep.
- [54:27]
Irene Bremis
So, okay, now I just asked a question and why. I said Giles. I said, Giles, is it true that you don't know how old you are? And it says yes right away.
- [54:42]
Rachel Crist
Oh, snap.
- [54:44]
Irene Bremis
There you go. Now, wait. Now you ask Giles. This has turned into ask.
- [54:49]
Rachel Crist
Yeah.
- [54:50]
Irene Bremis
Now Giles is the guest pendulum to ask another spirit. We've only, uh. Oh, what are you getting?
- [54:57]
Guest or Co-host
I'm getting. Do you know how old you are? Wait, let me see.
- [55:01]
Irene Bremis
No, you're asking. No, you're asking. Is it true that you don't know how old you are? That's how I word it.
- [55:07]
Rachel Crist
And yes.
- [55:08]
Guest or Co-host
The answer is yes.
- [55:09]
Irene Bremis
Okay, there we go.
- [55:09]
Rachel Crist
Now we're finally synchronized.
- [55:10]
Irene Bremis
Okay, now we know. Well, I'm gonna go back.
- [55:13]
Rachel Crist
Yeah, exactly. I'm gonna go back to all those people who left very aggressive comments on our TikTok and say, you know what? Giles himself doesn't know. Giles don't know.
- [55:20]
Guest or Co-host
Giles don't know.
- [55:21]
Irene Bremis
Giles don't know that schwat. Okay, well, there's Salem Witch Museum. Rachel Christone. Thank you so much for joining us.
- [55:31]
Rachel Crist
Thank you. This was fun. We're recording in October, and October is very. It's a very difficult time. No, it' fun time, but also a really intense time for those of us who work in Salem. So it's kind of fun to have an opportunity to step to the side and just, like, talk about the history as opposed to being immersed in the madness. So this is. This is actually kind of a nice reprieve for me.
- [55:50]
Irene Bremis
Okay, good. Because we know it's a very busy time, Halloween in Salem.
- [55:53]
Rachel Dratch
So thank you for taking the time.
- [55:55]
Guest or Co-host
Thank you.
- [55:59]
Rachel Dratch
And you can find me on Instagram at Ray Dratch. That's R A A E Dratch. And you can find Irene at IreneBremis. That's B R E M I S Bremes. And thanks for listening.
- [56:15]
Irene Bremis
Thanks for joining me on this journey.
- [56:16]
Rachel Dratch
Into the world of Woo Woo. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe.
- [56:20]
Irene Bremis
Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [56:23]
Rachel Dratch
Woo Woo with Rachel Dratch is a Q Code production executive produced by David Henning and Steve Wilson. Produced by by Alexa Gabriel Ramirez edited by Will Tendi.