Delusional Witch Juice

Heather Nations

Delusional Witch Juice is a weird-history podcast exploring witchcraft, folklore, the occult, paranormal phenomena, strange beliefs, and the stories hiding beneath the stories we think we know. It's part history lecture, part séance, part group chat. Unfiltered, well-researched, and made especially for delusional witches.

  1. 3d ago

    Samhain to Halloween: How an Irish Festival Became American Halloween

    A medieval Irish story says that on Samhain night, the fairy mounds open, and one warrior walks into a hill and comes back carrying summer. This year Americans will spend $13.5 billion on Halloween. So what happened in between? We follow Samhain from feasting kings and a maybe-sacred hill in County Meath, through a made-up "lord of the dead," the Church's messy calendar, kale-stalk fortune-telling, turnip lanterns, and a Welsh demon pig. Then we look at how the witch got into Halloween (it starts with confessions taken under torture), the first "tricks or treats" in print (Canada, 1917), the poisoned-candy panic, and whether anyone still celebrates the old way. Spoiler: there's a kid on the Isle of Man with a turnip. Chapters 0:00 The night the hills open 1:26 What Samhain actually was 6:22 The god who wasn't 7:55 Did the Church steal Samhain? 9:49 Guising, kale stalks and turnip lanterns 13:02 How the witch got into Halloween 15:31 Coming to America 17:40 The first "trick or treat" 18:48 The poisoned-candy panic 20:03 Does anyone still do it the old way? 24:55 From the hills to a hot dog costume Content note: witch trials and torture (briefly), and the 1974 poisoning of a child. Music: "The Box's Secret" via AISong.org, used under license. Follow Delusional Witch Juice wherever you're listening.

  2. Oct 21

    The Witchfinder General: England's Deadliest Witch Hunt

    In 1645, a young man in a small Essex town said he'd overheard witches meeting near his house. Within about two years, more than a hundred people across eastern England had been hanged. Matthew Hopkins had no official job and no real title, so how did the "Witchfinder General" end up running England's deadliest witch hunt, and why didn't anyone stop him? Heather follows the imps of Manningtree, the towns that paid for the witchfinder's services, a court sent to make the trials fair that hanged eighteen people in one day, an eighty-year-old vicar who confessed to sinking a ship, and the legend of how Hopkins died. Was he a con man, a true believer, or a service his neighbors kept hiring? Chapters: 00:00 The imp called Vinegar Tom 01:48 Who was Matthew Hopkins? 04:53 Manningtree, spring 1645 08:50 The Chelmsford trial 09:47 The witchfinders on tour 12:26 A bear in the garden 13:02 Twenty shillings a town 16:08 Parliament steps in 17:53 John Lowes 19:23 The vicar who pushed back 21:29 Hopkins answers back 23:30 How he really died 24:45 So what was he? 27:08 His ghost Content note: discusses torture, sleep deprivation and executions. Sources Malcolm Gaskill, Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy (2005): https://research-portal.uea.ac.uk/en/publications/witchfinders-a-seventeenth-century-english-tragedy/Matthew Hopkins, The Discovery of Witches (1647), Project Gutenberg: https://gutenberg.org/files/14015/14015-h/14015-h.htm"The devil in East Anglia: the Matthew Hopkins trials reconsidered," Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press): https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/witchcraft-in-early-modern-europe/devil-in-east-anglia-the-matthew-hopkins-trials-reconsidered/457471091C78984FFDB263B9CF2290BDA True Relation of the Araignment of Eighteene Witches… at St. Edmunds-bury (1645), Bodleian: https://ota.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/repository/xmlui/handle/20.500.12024/A95190?show=fullJohn Gaule, Select Cases of Conscience Touching Witches and Witchcrafts (1646), Bodleian: https://ota.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/repository/xmlui/handle/20.500.12024/A85867?show=fullBritannica, "Matthew Hopkins": https://www.britannica.com/print/article/1279664University of Manchester, Nehemiah Wallington's notebook: https://www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/diary-of-witchfinder-general-trials-published-online/Discovering Britain (Royal Geographical Society), Manningtree trail: https://www.discoveringbritain.org/activities/east-of-england/trails/manningtree-trail.htmlThanks for listening! Follow Delusional Witch Juice wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Wednesday.

  3. Oct 14

    Paying Off the Dead: Purgatory, Walking Corpses, and the Price of Salvation

    In 12th-century England, a dead man kept climbing into bed with his wife, and the whole street stayed up every night to watch for him. To understand why, we follow the strange medieval debt between the living and the dead: from Cluny’s prayers for souls, to walking corpses at Wharram Percy, to the 1517 indulgence campaign that literally put a price on salvation. Content note: descriptions of corpses being exhumed and burned, plague, and death. Chapters 00:00 The man who came home 01:46 Cluny and a day for the dead 04:35 When hell filed a complaint 06:21 Before purgatory had a name 07:55 William of Newburgh's walking dead 13:35 The bones at Wharram Percy 15:28 The bishop's letter 17:22 The 1517 price list 22:01 The rhyme and Luther's letter 25:09 They kept paying anyway 29:28 Why pay the dead? Selected sources: William of Newburgh, History of English Affairs, Book 5 (trans. Stevenson); Jacques Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory; Mays et al., Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (2017); the Instructio summaria and Tetzel's sermon (trans. Hillerbrand, The Reformation, 1964); Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun; John Aubrey, Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme. Music: "The Box's Secret" via AISong.org, used under license. Follow @delusionalwitchjuice

  4. Oct 7

    The Weird History of Household Protection: Witch Bottles, Hidden Shoes & Mummified Cats

    In 2004, builders in London dug up a sealed bottle from the 1600s filled with urine, bent nails, hair, fingernail clippings and a leather heart with a nail through it. Whoever made it never explained why. For centuries, people across England hid bottles, worn-out shoes, dead cats and carved symbols in their homes to keep witches out. Heather digs into a 1681 witch-bottle recipe, a 1682 witchcraft trial where a grieving father tried the counter-spell himself, protective marks in a room prepared for King James I, the shoe historian who started tracking hidden shoes in the 1950s, and the mummified cats nobody can fully explain. Was this magic kept secret, or was it just so normal that nobody bothered to write it down? Content note: discussion of a child's death and of animal remains. 0:00 The bottle in Greenwich1:30 The witch-bottle recipe9:11 The trial of Jane Kent13:27 A king's bedroom17:09 Hidden shoes21:47 Cats in the walls24:44 Hidden in plain sight26:17 Why didn't anyone write it down? Music: "The Box's Secret" via AISong.org, used under license. Follow Delusional Witch Juice wherever you listen. Show notes sources Greenwich witch bottle: LiveScience/NBC News (2009) · https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna31107319 ; Archaeology Magazine · https://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/halloween/opening_witch_bottle/Joseph Glanvill, Saducismus Triumphatus (1681), full text · https://github.com/textcreationpartnership/A42824Trial of Jane Kent, Old Bailey Proceedings, 1 June 1682 · https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/record/t16820601a-11MOLA, witch bottles · https://www.mola.org.uk/discoveries/news/what-should-you-do-if-you-find-17th-century-witch-bottleNational Trust, Witchmarks at Knole · https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/kent/knole/witchmarks-at-knole-and-the-gunpowder-plot ; Francis Young, "A note of caution" · https://drfrancisyoung.com/2014/11/06/the-knole-witch-marks-a-note-of-caution/Northampton Museums, Concealed Shoe Index · https://www.northamptonmuseums.com/info/3/collections/61/shoes-2/4 ; Ceri Houlbrook, "The Other Shoe" (2017) · https://www.research.herts.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/11997749/The_Other_Shoe_Proof.pdfJohn Schorn pilgrim badge, British Museum · https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1983-1203-2Brian Hoggard, "Dried Cats" · https://www.apotropaios.co.uk/dried-cats.html ; Pendle cottage cat · https://ancientbodies.wordpress.com/2011/12/11/witches-cats-and-buildings-not-a-simple-story/Creswell Crags witch marks, Historic England (2019) · https://historicengland.org.uk/whats-new/news/witches-marks-discovery-largest-in-britain/

  5. Sep 30

    Victorian Séances: Who Answered When They Called the Dead?

    In 1848, according to her mother, an 11-year-old girl in upstate New York clapped her hands at a knocking wall and said, "Mr. Splitfoot, do as I do." And the wall knocked back. Forty years later, her sister walked onto a New York stage and cracked her toe in front of around 2,000 people to show them how she said it was done. In between, the Victorians built a log cabin full of instruments for ghosts, tied mediums up in cabinets, took a spirit's pulse, and turned talking to the dead into a board game you could buy. This week I'm digging into Victorian séances: the rules of the spirit circle, the mediums who got caught (and the ones who didn't), how Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace ended up on opposite sides of a medium's trial, and how the pendulum, the planchette and the Ouija board let people make the call themselves. Plus a modern experiment where the Ouija board seemed to know more than the people using it. So when the Victorians called out to the dead, who actually answered? Chapters(00:00) Mr. Splitfoot, do as I do(01:33) Why people wanted to call the dead(07:14) The spirit room(11:04) Proof in the dark(17:04) Maggie Fox's confession(20:30) The pendulum: who's moving it?(23:25) The planchette(25:04) The Ouija board(27:35) So who answered?

  6. Sep 22

    Mabon: The Kidnapped Baby Behind the Fall Equinox

    The modern Pagan name for the fall equinox belongs to a Welsh man who was kidnapped when he was three nights old, imprisoned for an unknown length of time, and rescued only because one of King Arthur's impossible tasks required him to handle a magical hunting dog. In 1974, a Pagan writer named Aidan Kelly needed a name for the autumn equinox. He built an argument for one — running through the Eleusinian Mysteries, Demeter and Persephone, a baby held in a fire, Abraham and Isaac — and landed on Mabon ap Modron. But the Welsh story does not say what Kelly said it says. Mabon is not dead when he is found, nobody named Gwydion rescues him, and the search that finds him runs through a blackbird, a stag, an owl, an eagle, and finally a salmon. I follow the name back through the stories that built it, and find that the most interesting thing about Mabon is the part nobody can explain: why he was taken at all. Chapters 00:00 Cold open: a baby stolen at three nights old 02:01 How Mabon got onto the calendar 05:10 Demeter, Persephone, and a child in the fire 11:05 Abraham, Isaac, and the ram 14:20 The Helen problem 15:28 Looking for a northern counterpart 16:51 The marriage quest from hell 20:43 Asking the oldest animals in the world 23:14 A loose end: who actually holds the dog?24:41 Who was Mabon before the prison? 29:33 Back to the equinox Sources ​Aidan Kelly, About Naming Ostara, Litha and Mabon (Patheos, 2017) — his own account of the 1974 calendar​Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Evelyn-White translation​Medelhavsmuseet, The Eleusinian Mysteries​Foundation of the Hellenic World, The Eleusinian Mysteries ritual​Apollodorus, Library, Epitome 1.23–24​Genesis 22 (Chabad Tanakh)​Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 31a (Sefaria)​Culhwch and Olwen, Lady Charlotte Guest translation (Robbins Library, University of Rochester)​Pa gur yv y porthaur (“Arthur and the Porter”)​Rachel Bromwich, Trioedd Ynys Prydein, triad 52, via Siân Echard​Roman Inscriptions of Britain 583 — the Ribchester dedication to Apollo Maponus​Peniarth 147 — the woman at the ford Music: “The Box's Secret” — AI-generated via AISong.org If you want another historical rabbit hole with a suspicious amount of mythology attached, follow Delusional Witch Juice wherever you're listening.

  7. Sep 4

    The Real Witchcraft Behind Practical Magic: What TikTok Got Wrong

    When did Practical Magic stop being a movie and start becoming witch lore? The 1998 film gave us the Owens house, rosemary by the garden gate, midnight margaritas, family grimoires, suspiciously perfect hair, and enough cozy witch imagery to fuel Pinterest for approximately three lifetimes. But a lot of what we now associate with the Practical Magic version of witchcraft wasn't an ancient tradition. It was fiction. In this episode of Delusional Witch Juice, we're getting into how a box-office flop slowly became one of the biggest influences on the modern witch aesthetic, and how the internet helped remove the quotation marks around fictional witchcraft. We’re talking about: • Why Practical Magic originally flopped• The very real folklore mixed into the movie's fictional magic• The alleged curse placed on the production• Why the Owens house feels weirdly historically authentic despite never actually existing• How Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, and WitchTok turned movie imagery into “witch knowledge”• Why repetition can make something fictional feel traditional• And what happens when Practical Magic 2 enters an internet already obsessed with the Owens aesthetic CHAPTERS 00:00 Cold Open02:57 The Movie Did Not Become a Blueprint Overnight05:43 How Repetition Turns an Image Into a Fact08:01 The Movie’s Actual Magic Trick13:24 The House That Looked Like Proof16:08 The Internet Removed the Plot20:09 When the Feed Became the Grimoire24:49 Does Fictional Lore Become Real Lore?27:28 So What Happens When the Sequel Arrives?RESEARCH + FURTHER READING Alice Hoffman — Practical Magic (1995) Claudia Williams — “The Practical Magic House: Unveiling the Design Secrets of This Enchanting Dwelling,” Architectural Digest David Sims — “Thank the ’90s for Practical Magic,” The Atlantic Lila Shapiro — “The True Story of How Practical Magic Got Cursed by a Witch,” Vulture Chris Miller — “How Modern Witches Enchant TikTok: Intersections of Digital, Consumer, and Material Culture(s) on #WitchTok,” Religions Museum of Witchcraft and Magic — “The Witches Hat” Museum of London Archaeology — research on concealed witch bottles and ritual objects Follow Delusional Witch Juice on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, subscribe on YouTube for full video episodes, and follow on Instagram and TikTok for clips, strange history, folklore, and whatever rabbit hole I fall into next. And if you know somebody who owns the margarita glasses, planted rosemary beside the garden gate, or has spent twenty years trying to recreate the Owens kitchen... send them this episode.

  8. Aug 27

    Why Witches Won't Make Moon Water on a Lunar Eclipse

    Why is regular full-moon water considered magical, but eclipse water is treated like the LaCroix of chaos? In this episode of Delusional Witch Stews, Heather investigates where our beliefs about full moons, moon water, and “chaotic eclipse energy” actually come from. We’re talking lunar madness, historically inaccurate werewolves, modern Wiccan esbats, celestial dragons, moon-eating jaguars, Mesopotamian eclipse omens, and the deeply inconvenient question: should you make eclipse water or not? The answer is less about a universal witchcraft rule and more about the story you believe the eclipse is telling. CHAPTERS 00:00 Tonight’s lunar eclipse00:20 The usual full-moon rules01:11 Why is eclipse water considered dangerous?02:08 Why humans think the full moon is powerful04:48 Werewolves and modern moon folklore06:17 Full moons, Wicca, and esbats08:09 Where did moon water come from?10:14 The science of a lunar eclipse11:42 Dragons, jaguars, and monsters eating the moon14:30 Mesopotamian eclipse omens17:28 Why eclipses became symbols of chaos19:02 Is eclipse water actually dangerous?21:12 When magical symbolism meets physics23:12 Should you make eclipse water?24:49 Two different stories about the moon26:09 Closing RESEARCH & FURTHER READING • NASA — August 27–28, 2026 Deep Partial Lunar Eclipsehttps://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5672 • The Metropolitan Museum of Art — The Solar Eclipse and the Substitute Kinghttps://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/solar-eclipse-substitute-king • PubMed — The Influence of the Lunar Cycle on Psychiatric Emergency Consultationshttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41845243/ • PubMed — No Effect of Lunar Cycle on Psychiatric Admissions or Emergency Evaluationshttps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17256692/ • Scott Cunningham — The Complete Book of Incense, Oils & Brews If you enjoyed this trip down the lunar rabbit hole, follow Delusional Witch Stews and share the episode with the witch in your life who already has a jar sitting outside.

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About

Delusional Witch Juice is a weird-history podcast exploring witchcraft, folklore, the occult, paranormal phenomena, strange beliefs, and the stories hiding beneath the stories we think we know. It's part history lecture, part séance, part group chat. Unfiltered, well-researched, and made especially for delusional witches.

Information

  • Creator
    Heather Nations
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    83
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Heather Nations
  • Show Website
    Delusional Witch Juice