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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the best of Coast to Coast podcast.

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Speaker 1: a Coast Insider today. Now here's a highlight from Coast

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Speaker 1: to Coast a M on iHeart Radio. Welcome back to

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Speaker 1: Coast to Coast former professor of English composition and artist

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Speaker 1: the writer Practicing which Harold Roth is among the foremost

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Speaker 1: authorities on plants within the modern o cult community. For

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Speaker 1: the past fifteen years, he has owned and operated Alchemy Works.

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Speaker 1: That's an online store focused on herbal magic where he

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Speaker 1: crafts and sells potions and magical oils and things like that.

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Speaker 1: His book The Witchy Nerbs has been in the works

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Speaker 1: for a decade and it's out now. Harold. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: the program. I'm looking forward to this tonight. Oh thank you,

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Speaker 1: thank you for having me. How did you become a witch?

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Speaker 1: I became a witch by basically being interested in gardening

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Speaker 1: and growing plants, and then I started looking at the

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Speaker 1: folklore behind them, and I found that a lot of

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Speaker 1: them were used for witchcraft. I had been interested in

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Speaker 1: the cult way before that, like when I was a teenager,

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Speaker 1: I read tarot cards and stuff, but I hadn't really

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Speaker 1: done anything with it much. And this was, gosh, twenty

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Speaker 1: years later or more that I started gardening and I

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Speaker 1: could just see that these things, these plants, were more

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Speaker 1: than just a material object. So I started working with him.

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Speaker 1: That's that's basically how I did your parents trying to

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Speaker 1: shy you away from this? Did they try to push

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Speaker 1: you away from witchcraft when you were younger? Yeah, my mom,

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Speaker 1: I I always read a lot, and I started bringing

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Speaker 1: homebooks about palmistry and things like that when I was

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Speaker 1: a young teenager, and she told me not, you know,

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Speaker 1: that it was just garbage. She didn't tell me it

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Speaker 1: was going to go to hell or anything. She just said,

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Speaker 1: it's just garbage. But I didn't care well. And let's

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Speaker 1: let everybody know that witchcraft doesn't mean you are evil,

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Speaker 1: that you're Satanist, that you're trying to do people in

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Speaker 1: right right, I mean, some people are trying to do people,

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Speaker 1: but people of all persuasions are trying to do people exactly.

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Speaker 1: So when you got involved in this, did you do

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Speaker 1: it on your own? Did you find covens? What did

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Speaker 1: you do? I did do it on my own for

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Speaker 1: for quite a while, and and I opened my shop

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Speaker 1: because I originally was just going to sell seeds because

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Speaker 1: I always had too many, right, But right away I

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Speaker 1: started meeting other which is through the shop, and then

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Speaker 1: it just expanded from there. It was really great. And

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Speaker 1: I never joined a coven myself. I knew people, I

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Speaker 1: know people who are you know, active in their covenants,

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Speaker 1: but I never joined to a covenant or a group,

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Speaker 1: but just never been a group person. But that's just me.

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Speaker 1: And we're going to get through these thirteen essential plants

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Speaker 1: that you believe are for a magical garden. Now, how

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Speaker 1: do we know they are? Did you pick them? Did

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Speaker 1: somebody else pick them? Where they come from? Directly been

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Speaker 1: used in various types of witchcraft in different cultures and

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Speaker 1: basically that's why I chose them. There are some of

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Speaker 1: them are kind of standards, like me Andre can bellad

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Speaker 1: on a hanbane. You know, I think everybody has probably

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Speaker 1: heard about which is using those, but other ones are

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Speaker 1: just more that historically they were commonly grown in anybody's

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Speaker 1: or garden, but which has already also had other uses

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Speaker 1: for them. Do they are they used in uh? In spells?

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Speaker 1: Is primarily yeah, Yeah, they're used in spells different kinds.

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Speaker 1: Like you and you can make things from them that

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Speaker 1: would be useful in spouse or useful in some kind

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Speaker 1: of pagan practice that helps you better unite with the

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Speaker 1: natural world. Do you ingest these or do you just

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Speaker 1: burn them? What do you do with them? Most people?

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Speaker 1: Most people probably wouldn't. Well, he certainly wouldn't be ingesting belladonna.

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Speaker 1: Most people would be using them to say, be a

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Speaker 1: part of a powder or an incense, or put it

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Speaker 1: in a charm bag, or it is that the plant

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Speaker 1: actually provides little things that you can like henbane makes

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Speaker 1: these nifty little could rine shaped pods that can be

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Speaker 1: used like you can. When they dry, you can stuff

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Speaker 1: them with incense and use them for specific spells. So

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Speaker 1: they could be some kind of material thing that the

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Speaker 1: plant makes. Besides the way we typically think of an

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Speaker 1: herbory harvest the leaves and then used the leaves. Harold

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Speaker 1: didn't the Wizard of Oz kind of railroad people's thoughts

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Speaker 1: about witches. I don't think so, you know, the Wicked

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Speaker 1: Witch and all that. You don't think she is like

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Speaker 1: a big mascot with witches. Oh yeah, funny. I mean

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Speaker 1: it's it's with a sense of humor. So like, there

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Speaker 1: are witches who deliberately wear striped socks, you know, or

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Speaker 1: striped stockings. Remember she had those red and white stockings.

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Speaker 1: Oh well, I hurt when her sister was hit by

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Speaker 1: the house. Uh. But so yeah, it's kind of an

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Speaker 1: affectionate mascot. That's what I've heard. Interesting take there. Now,

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Speaker 1: let's let's get into there are people would say good

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Speaker 1: witches and bad witches, right, yes, And I think that's

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Speaker 1: true to some extent. I mean, there are people who

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Speaker 1: seem to really focus on negative things. They're they're basically

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Speaker 1: just negative people from what I can tell um, and

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Speaker 1: they're always you know, taking offense and putting curses on people.

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Speaker 1: But most witches that I have known are just like

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Speaker 1: everybody else in the sense that they they generally have

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Speaker 1: a positive attitude, and they want to do things to

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Speaker 1: protect themselves, to grow abundance, to you know, get blessings

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Speaker 1: on whoever. And and sometimes they might need to do

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Speaker 1: a curse or get somebody out of their life, but

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Speaker 1: that's pretty much it. They don't go around well. And

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Speaker 1: the person they want to get out of their life

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Speaker 1: generally is uh, it bothers some evil person. Is he not?

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Speaker 1: Or is she not? Yeah, like it could be somebody.

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Speaker 1: I've heard about people doing curse work on, say, for instance,

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Speaker 1: someone in their community who had committed rape or incest

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Speaker 1: or with violent and they weren't able to get help

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Speaker 1: from the authorities, or and they and they knew the

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Speaker 1: person was stone cold guilty, right, Yeah, Yeah, this would

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Speaker 1: be often either doesn't happen to them themselves or to

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Speaker 1: a close friend or relative. And then basically most of

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Speaker 1: the time what people do is what's called a binding spell,

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Speaker 1: and it it keeps the point of it is not

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Speaker 1: to kill the person or anything like that. It's to

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Speaker 1: keep them from doing anything. Now, some people would say, hey,

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Speaker 1: wait a minute. In our society, they're they're innocence until

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Speaker 1: proven guilty. Um, how would you react to that? As

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Speaker 1: a which and somebody asks you to put a spell

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Speaker 1: on somebody that they're convinced did some harm to people,

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Speaker 1: but they never got convicted. Well personally, I so in

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Speaker 1: the eyes of the law, they're they're they're not guilty,

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Speaker 1: right if it's if, if it's me personally, I look

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Speaker 1: at it like a dangerous dog. You know, dangerous dog

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Speaker 1: doesn't have to bite you for you to put up

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Speaker 1: offense or to avoid them or whatever. But the other

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Speaker 1: thing is when somebody has come to me and said

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Speaker 1: this person, this is such and all these things, then

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Speaker 1: usually what I do is tell them how to do

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Speaker 1: spell work, because you never really know if what they're

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Speaker 1: saying is the whole story. So, I mean, I know

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Speaker 1: plenty of people who do spell work for higher and

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Speaker 1: they have to make their own judgment call on whether

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Speaker 1: the person not so much telling the truth, but how

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Speaker 1: much of the story is missing, and that you have

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Speaker 1: to put that in yourself and kind of read between

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Speaker 1: the lines with what the person is saying, so having

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Speaker 1: the full picture. But generally, if somebody comes to a

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Speaker 1: whitch and ask for help, they're not doing it just

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Speaker 1: to getting somebody's face. Listen to more Coast to Coast

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Speaker 1: AM every weeknight at one a m. Eastern and go

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