The Home Cultus with Briar
Radical Elphame
UPG is a term I find to be often misunderstood. Short for “unverified person gnosis,” this phrase is sometimes wielded as a criticism in the world of spirituality – pagan, polytheist, or otherwise. It’s the word “unverified” that stands out in this instance, that seems to be contextualizing someone's “personal gnosis” – about a spiritual path, or being, or myth – as dubious, or heterodox. When used disparagingly, UPG can feel like a corrective. In many ways it can feel like a tool within so-called “alternative spirituality” to reinforce the kind of strictures of the...
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Fröja's Apples with Sara Bonadea George
Radical Elphame
What can change a goddess into a nature spirit? What can change a nature spirit into a witch? A hasty answer might simply be "colonization." This was the evolution of Fröja in Sweden. I don’t think we can have an intellectually honest discourse about folklore without confronting the forces of colonization head-on. What has this ongoing process done to the gods, the spirits, and the myths of a people? However, stopping there might miss the point. I think we also need to ask: what is the agency of a Goddess during a religious conversion? Does she merely recede into the past, or does she...
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Animistic Astrology with Teagan West
Radical Elphame
There may be no clearer gateway drug to magic in 2026 than astrology. You don’t need psychic abilities, or a spirit court, or a wider mystical philosophy to dabble in astrology. Just a birthday. I’ve always been a proponent of practical magic – the kind that helps you get stuff – not as an end goal, but as a necessary step, for many, in re-enchanting their minds. Astrology can do something similar, though, with merely a natal chart reading. What do the planets have to do with who I am? It doesn’t really matter why astrology can tell you about yourself; the power is in simply...
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The Immense Hauntology of Things with Lee Morgan
Radical Elphame
I sometimes wonder why, of all the occult and magical currents we have on offer, Witchcraft manages to still have such a powerful pull on our contemporary culture. We find ourselves on the other side of a century of occult revivals and magical trends, and yet Witchcraft somehow stil retains a timeless appeal. More recent spiritual trends, such as the “New Age” movement, which you would expect to be a better gateway for contemporary Western people to explore spirituality, have aesthetically aged far worse than Witchcraft generally, and what once appeared modern and enlightened would now be...
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The Old Line with Aidan Wachter
Radical Elphame
When you look at the oldest and most intact spiritualities around the world, you will find that, at the center of their practice, is ancestral veneration. For many of us who were raised in less intact spiritualities and in cultures with a tendency to mold prevailing religions to the will of Empire, venerating our ancestors can feel complicated, to say the least. The same cultures that tend to mold religions to the will of Empire, also have a habit of tainting our ancestral line. It doesn’t take long tracing back the family trees of many of us to run into the stains and wounds of colonialism,...
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Raising the Dead with Corinne Boyer
Radical Elphame
Folk magic has a powerful pull. It can express complex metaphysical ideas that, for most of us practicing today, had once felt like the purview of the “New Age.” Magical ideas that once seemed fantastical, through the lens of folk magic, can suddenly feel earthy and vital. Techniques that once felt silly can begin to feel ancestral. The source texts go from channeled writings, to myths and folktales, and academic papers. There’s an artistry and intelligence grouped in with modern-day practitioners of folk magic that give the disenchanted “Western” mind permission to think...
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Hillbilly Woodwose with Nay Noordmans
Radical Elphame
They’re on bumper stickers, they’re on bags of jerky, they’re on bars of soap, and if you're not seeing an ancient alien on the History Channel, you’re almost certainly seeing someone searching for them in the woods. Big Foot, Sasquatch, Oh Mah, Sunk Ape – they go by many names, and are spotted throughout North America, and beyond. For some, they are a myth; for some, a monster; and for the rest, a mascot. The loudest amongst their fans will tell you they are a flesh and blood relic hominid, and describe their migration patterns, their use of infrasound to evade capture, and, of...
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Cursed Films with Sfinga & B. Key
Radical Elphame
What is it that draws occultists to horror films, when by in large, the history of horror cinema is essentially anti-occult propaganda? Despite what can seem like a counterintuitive interest on the part of practitioners, the fact remains that the horror genre is the last bastion of regular engagement with the spirit world left in contemporary media, and therefore a natural draw for people who see the spiritual as fundamental to everyday life. Another consideration is the cathartic embrace of the shadow on display in horror, and often staring death right in the face. Both things our culture in...
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The Black Book of Norah Fornario - an Audio Essay
Radical Elphame
I had to reschedule an interview for the first half of this month, but I didn't want to leave you hanging this week, so I recorded an essay I put out on our Substack recently for your listening pleasure. Nora Fornario has always been a deep fascination of mine, whom I find to be misunderstood and often explored in ways that ignore her most interesting aspects in favor of a more lurid true-crime bent. This essay is less focused on the infamous death of Nora Fornario, but rather a deep dive into what we can speculate about her own ideas and magical practice. The TL;DR is Witchcraft. ...
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28 Moons Later with J.M. Hamade
Radical Elphame
When we think about the Otherworld, we tend to do so from the perspective of this world. What is this hidden world that seems to operate so differently from our own? Who are the beings who dwell there, and what do they want with us? In J. M. Hamade’s fascinating book, Procession of the Night Theater, they explore the “night side” of astrology, offering a poetic vision of the Lunar Stations, not to be defined or calculated so much as dreamed with. It’s this study of the nocturnal side of things, the hidden side of things, that not only eloquently elucidates the ancient art of...
info_outlineOne of my key takeaways from the conversation I had with Joanna Tarnawska, was the way she articulated her own definition of what makes a practice fundamentally “witchcraft” as opposed to other strains of magic, mysticism, and pagan spirituality. The key to witchcraft, she suggests, is heresy.
I’ve heard similar distinctions elsewhere regarding witchcraft, but Joanna’s definition of heresy went further than I’ve encountered before, and articulated something for me that I think is essential. As Joanna describes it, the core heresy of witchcraft is not solely in relation to a specific form of religion, but rather an ideological and magical subversion of the taboos, doctrines, and preconceived ideas of any given society the witch finds herself in…or maybe just outside of.
As a person living in the US in 2025, myself, the most potent taboos I sense are less about religious affiliation and more often tied to questioning capitalism. As the late Mark Fisher summarized eloquently, crystallizing the bizarre malaise of our hopeless compliance to the capitalism hoisted upon us, “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” Opposing Capitalism is not heretical in and of itself. However, believing that the myth of Capitalism’s moral mandate as “the worst economic system, except for all the others” is fundamentally a propaganda tool used to exploit the working class is a heretical stance. This idea is heretical where I live, because it subverts the current widely agreed-upon economic system and its moral justifications, suggesting that, on an ethical level, what we think is right, may actually be wrong.
Another taboo I sense far less in the magical community, but I do feel in my personal and professional life, is speaking out about the genocide happening right now in Gaza. For many who even feel strongly about the plight of Gaza internally, to do so openly, publicly, loudly can seem like a modern-day heresy. To support the innocent Palestinians being killed in Gaza is to support Hamas, so says the ideological opposition. To challenge the Zionist order that the Israeli military has assured us “the ends justify the means” in defending, is apparently to be outing yourself as an anti-semite – they would say. Interestingly, the term anti-semite has come to mean anti-Jewish, and there’s no word for being anti-Palestinian, even though they are also a Semitic people. To challenge the political movement of Zionism, which seeks to empower an oppressed people, by pointing out that it is, in turn, oppressing another people, is heretical to the widely held political beliefs of the US today.
When I asked Joanna Tarnawska at the end of this episode if there was anything she would like to plug, she said that in this moment, she only wants to say “Free Palestine.” To honor that sentiment, which is as vital right now as ever, I thought I would dedicate this intro to speaking up about the genocide taking place in Gaza at the hands of Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF, who are committing war crimes and unthinkable atrocities, and brazenly broadcasting them for all to see. The ideology behind Zionism seeks to right very real wrongs inflicted on Jewish people in the past. Still, the senseless murders of tens of thousands of innocent men, women, and children have completely eroded any noble causes that Zionism may have once stood for. To say this is not to diminish the rights or safety of Jewish people, or to downplay the horrifying events of October 7th 2023, carried out by Hamas.
To quote Ezra Klein on the deep political rut this genocide is driving between Jewish people of the diaspora here in the US, where I live, “For decades, American Judaism, built on the liberalism of the diaspora, has been interwoven with Zionism. What happens when the ideals of the one become incompatible with the reality of the other?”
The death and destruction Palestinian’s are experiencing in Gaza is unimaginable for me. It can feel insignificant, but I sincerely think speaking out is essential right now. Merely acknowledging that there is a genocide taking place before our eyes should not be controversial at this point, but it still is for many. If you are in the US, your tax dollars are funding war crimes. Please contact your member of Congress and call for an arms embargo on Israel and humanitarian access for Gaza. No matter where you are, speak out. Hold corporations accountable for their role in violating the rights of Palestinians in Gaza. In the show notes, I’ve also included links to do so, as well as to donate and send aid to Palestinians who are literally being starved in Gaza right now. Included in the show notes is a link to the Palestine World Food Program seeking donations, as well as more information on how to divest from corporations that are complicit in facilitating this genocide.
Free Palestine.
SHOW NOTES:
Send Aid to Gaza: https://www.wfp.org/emergencies/palestine-emergency
Hold Corporations Accountable for IDF support: AFCS
Joanna's Youtube Channel: Polish Folk Witch
Joanna's IG: @polishfolkwitch
Pre-Order Joanna's Book: Polish Folk Magic