The Occult in Colonial America - Magic Divination Astrology & Alchemy

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

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[@tomasgonzalez5957]

I o

[@threeshocks5769]

Much respect for the anthropological thinker.

[@funningames2243]

Check out a video from The Augusta Heritage Center of Davis and Elkins College entitled: "Signs, Cures and Witchery" set in Appalachia of West Virginia. The people were of German descent and the video really butts up nicely with this one. Tales of men and women performing white and black craft. kzbin.info/www/bejne/hKjEhpaJh9iEhrM

[@FOLKTALES456]

Interesting video. Thank you. Oh, and nice tie.

[@asteroxfoundation]

Dr. Sledge does a great job in the scholarly search for truth on the occult while avoiding sensationalism.

[@mielimedina3146]

IKR I’m here for it and love that so much!

[@kkeithf]

Yup

[@johnlomax2502]

He's funny and witty also, which I like.

[@lobes117]

As a scholar presenting/teaching, it's recommended to stay objective

[@codyrebelcb]

@@johnlomax2502 in a way that catches you off guard. I love it.

[@Witch_of_TheWood]

I may not have seen it but I would love to see a video of you delving into Appalachian folk magic of the scotch-irish and German. The traditions that may have faded or were stomped out in larger cities through the 1700s, was alive and well in Appalachia, and some still is today.

[@Matt-yn8dv]

My dad is a builder in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Over the years we bought a series of farms all next to one another including one my great grandparents owned. If we can save old buildings in disrepair, we will. We remove the modern siding and tag each log. Dismantle and reassemble somewhere else. Over the years we've saved quite a few. A couple of the oldest building have had different types of stars symbols hidden in the interior of the construction. The person who made them seems to have carved his name into a few of them. I don't have them in front of me but the name that I researched could have been Germanic or a few other possibilities. Anyway, two of the slate tablets were in-between the interior mud wall and exterior log wall. One was dated (1821). One was in the first log cabin constructed. and the other was in the first addition added to the cabin to give them more room (1821). Anyway, later we would find the man's grave on the property with a stone marker containing his and his wives name amongst others. We found his family members that are alive today and moved their graves (at their and the state's request) to a new set of graves with their grave markers. They can be visited at New Freedom cemetery in Pennsylvania. The stars that were in the house were not on any of their gravestones. These people were closely related to a famous early 20th century Witch named Nelson Rehmeyer who would be murdered later on in the hex hollow murder at his home in Rehmeyer's Hollow by John Blymire along with the theft of his Grimoire "Der Lange Verborgen Freund" (Long lost friend).

[@SirCoughsalot]

I love the rigorous, scholarly way you present this information, your quiet, dry sense of humor, and your reading recommendations. I was familiar with some North American colonial magical practices through cursory reading, but this made me realize how much I *don't* know - which will inspire more in-depth reading.

[@AtunSheiFilms]

This was really good. If I could make a suggestion, the cross dissolves are kind of distracting and slow the pace of your video. You'd be better with just a hard cut, starting right when you start speaking. That said the information was great!

[@suspicaxrohde2310]

Fancy seeing you here! Doing research for the VVitchfinder General?

[@fredranzalot4849]

I totally wasn't expecting to see you here, but am simultaneously totally unsurprised.

[@mcneeson]

I agree with this

[@valmarsiglia]

Another interesting character from that era is Thomas Morton, founder of the colony of Merrymount. He scandalized the Puritans by treating the local indigenous people as equals and basically practicing something that seems quite akin to modern neopaganism, as unbelievable as it sounds (the authorities accused him of worshipping Aphrodite and Dionysus with drunken orgies). After he was eventually banished and the colony broken up, the Puritans then took the positively Lovecraftian step of renaming it Mount Dagon.

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Thanks for this !

[@valmarsiglia]

@@TheEsotericaChannel My pleasure!

[@ryancagerbaker]

🤯

[@seth8776]

I love that you give book recommendations at the end of your videos!

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Yep, it's like a here are my sources + here's where to read more....occult reading rainbow, but don't take my word for it ;)

[@williamchristensen7354]

I just love your snark. I can't remember the last time I had a good laugh while actually learning something. Many thanks!

[@CelticPaladin]

Watching this channel has put a lot of weird books on my wishlist. You've made the arcane iteration of Reading Rainbow. ... which would make the theme song highly suggestive. "Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high" would make for a nice incantation.

[@johnnewton8017]

I know I’m super late but I love this comment!!

[@ShaynaLoveAF]

Regarding jars of urine and nails, I wonder if some of these may have been misinterpreted. It would be such a strange/disturbing thing to find, but I do know that urine was used in laundering fabrics and things like nails, bolts, pins are still used to this day in fabric dying. The metal objects are left to soak in a liquid (maybe urine in those days?) and then the strained liquid is used as a mordant to achieve different colours in dying.

[@ShaynaLoveAF]

Also - wow, this channel is great! I really love hearing about all of these topics and learning so much new information!

[@kkeithf]

It can also age certain metals, giving them a kind of look

[@sunshyn784]

Protection jars. You urinate in a mason jar and add in nails, screws, broken glass etc. as a protective agent against hexes. You can also add in menstrual blood or semen to "enhance" the effectiveness. I learned this practice at a young age growing up in a Paegan family.

[@SI-ln6tc]

Shoes placed between walls were also done. And some homes hung hollow glass balls.

[@nachtegaelw5389]

Ooh great point! Tin is still a commonly used mordant in hand dyeing, & I know in some parts of early modern Europe urine was collected & aged to create ammonia specifically for fulling & dyeing in home textile manufacture.

[@andythedishwasher1117]

This was a fascinating episode. That Virginian Necromancer has a distinctly Lovecraftian flavor to him.

[@bellewood9521]

It's funny, you'd never think of Va as being at the forefront of colonial magickal praxis, but there you go....

[@BPMANN7692]

I had to comment even though I hardly ever do. I ran across your channel as I was talking a regular road trip in Northern California and was pleasantly surprised at your teaching. After one three hour drive you had me hooked. Now I’ve had the opportunity to listen to your teachings several times and they only seem to get better. I’m completely amazed by the massive content you present and am greatly thankful for it. I plan on contributing to your channel ASAP. Thanks for your anointed work.

[@pentegarn1]

I'm so glad you did the episode. I meet so many that deny ANY real occult practices before modern times. I think they see talking about the evidence of it as somehow giving voice to Margaret Murry's ideas which are now totally anathema. Of course Murry believed the way she did because of the very things you point out in this video...the difference is really just in the labels used.

[@ruthbennett7563]

Wonderful work! It’s always a joy to see your videos appear in my feed. I am a Mayflower descendant (from Francis Eaton, the carpenter/builder & a non-Puritan signer of the Compact) & a graduate of the College of Wm. & Mary in Williamsburg... so this piece has quite a bit of personal connection. FYI: There are so many secret (cardinal directionally-aligned) chambers/tunnels running through the old college grounds, Governor’s Palace & gardens, and multiple plantation properties in the area. Most are closed to the public. Some are rumored to have “water features” & mystical symbols carved or in fresco on their walls. I was able to tour a few sites during my time there... but never enough to satisfy my curiosity about them.

[@haikat4]

Thank you for what you do!! Despite being a little niche, this is one of the best educational channels on KZbin.

[@hogasreluflorentin2105]

i hope you see my comment, i like you to know that i am a doctor, and i find youre work more exciting and full of knowledge, than any other field there is, I am sorry that you don't have the views that you deserve for what you do and know. I wish you all the best!!

[@kleocrow]

This was really good!!! Great history, some cheeky jokes and an all around enjoyable time!!!

[@cognitiveTrifurcation]

7:23 My mom grew up in Maine, and actually found a witch bottle (or witch jar, as you refer to it here) in the walls of her house during some 'amateur renovations.' Not understanding what it was but being thoroughly grossed out, she and her sisters ended up tossing it into the river. Decades later, my mom started studying the Salem Witchcraft Trials and realized what the disgusting, possibly centuries-old object had been.

[@sr2291]

Why? What was it?

[@disnagburnazog9552]

​@@sr2291piss and nails, innit

[@deibellator6130]

TikTok brought me here, with that being said this is very educational.

[@valmarsiglia]

With colonial Masonry, I don't know that Lockian liberalism or Enlightenment values in general necessarily exclude an interest in the occult. Many of the great scientific minds of that general era-Newton, Boyle, Ashmole (himself a Mason), and others involved with the founding of the Royal Society-were keenly interested if not downright preoccupied with occult subjects like Rosicrucianism, alchemy, astrology, etc. In fact, Masonry became a magnet for just such people. Now, why exactly this happened is one of the big questions in Masonic history.

[@MrAlexanderrangel]

This makes me very curious about the occult in Latin America and the Carribean. I've read that Jamaica banned books by DW DeLaurence and that Bibliotheque Bleu grimoires were common. And the book of St Cyprian is common in spanish speaking countries, or grimoires attribtuted to the figure

[@VirgoArtsOfficial]

As a folk practitioner reconnecting with her Appalachian roots, your videos are incredibly helpful.

[@BlakJetTek]

ooh love this! Maybe for a future video you could also explore the syncretistic magic practices of the slaves in America around the same time, THAT would really be something!

[@markwarrensprawson]

Hi there, Doctor Sledge (speaking of metal names). I discovered your channel this morning as your presentation on Solomon's Lesser Key and various dealings with demons turned up among KZbin's recommendations for me. After watching that, I did as you prescribed and popped over to its complementary presentation on Angela's Symposium, which I also enjoyed tremendously, not only as a video in itself but also inasmuch as it related to yours. I have now thoroughly enjoyed this presentation. And so this is just a line dropped to humbly thank you for the work you do, and also for adding not one but two new channels to my list of favourites. My warmest regards to the both of you.

[@jamiegallier2106]

Always a fascinating delving experience. Historical, thoughtful, organized, respectful and always entertaining. I appreciate this channel and Dr. Sledge’s scholarly approach to these periods.

[@krakendragonslayer1909]

I love this channel, I was researching neolithic and bronze age evolution of beliefs and symbols, and this channel researches iron age and medieval periods and that all together gives me full picture I think

[@saigeNstone]

I'm addicted to your videos! Binge watching and randomly laughing out loud. Great information and a fantastic delivery! 👏Thank you! ❤

[@complimentary_voucher]

Awesome, thank you. This topic is fascinating in its batshit perversity and counter narrative potential. Love it.

[@oceanusprocellarum1119]

Oo crossing over into occult meteorology! The Almanac and it's place in natural philosophy's history is fascinating

[@wendyhowell9276]

I'd love to see a video on the history of Hexwork, Pennsylvania Dutch practices, sin eating and the like. I've listened to podcasts and have a book on a similar topic. I'd love your learned take on these areas of practice.

[@MrsKAS1]

New Subscriber! Love the humorous education. Thank you for all of your hard work!!

[@AI-hx3fx]

Me, an Old Rite Catholic: *cackling at the Latin and crazy stuff we snuck in*

[@thesuperhero]

As someone who was raised catholic, this is all so very interesting. I've gotten at least two other people watching your wonderful channel m

[@pedroarroyo345]

I love these eps on colonial america, make more pleaseee

[@crystallinecrow3365]

fantastic episode. so grateful for this channel.

[@lynnpayne9519]

Being brought up Mormon I heard a lot about shew stones. Also Times and Seasons was a newsletter of sorts that spoke of astrology and numerology. It has always fascinated me.

[@williamgarrison5604]

Always informative, always learn something new. Thank you 🌄

[@uuncoolguy6]

Professor Doctor Sir, I hope this message finds you well. Your well and wealth of knowledge is admirable; however, I idolize it. Ive found myself falling deep into your channel without meaning to. Your titles and then discussion are brilliant and so scholarly youve become my main source when discussing occultism is my everyday. You deserve so much attention. You have the best intro. I hope you consider me your student

[@matthewkopp2391]

It is fascinated that the Hexing doll is in Ancient Greece, Edwardian England, Vodoo, and in China. It's almost universal.

[@hoathanatos6179]

Ancient Egypt had curse dolls as well. You would go to a graveyard, place curses upon the doll, disfigure it and break it, and have the angry spirits of the graveyard go off to haunt and torment the person represented by the doll.

[@vagingo]

Awesome content. I love learning about the puritans, they were nuts!

[@crackyflipside]

I'd love for you to investigate the African diaspora religions that syncretized with the Catholicisms and native religions of the Caribbean. Palo Mayombe has a fascinating mythology.

[@wanketta]

This was so good! I’m a Patreon of Dr Sledge, and if you’re reading this, you should be, too.

[@jdewit8148]

Thanks Dr Sledge, your a wealth of knowledge.

[@jesseglass5674]

Hello Dr. Sledge, I was wondering if you might consider doing a video on Pennsylvania, the third center for Hermetic and occult practice in early America. Jesse

[@gemmapearce9943]

I don't know if anyone has ever mentioned this, but on the subject of witch jars in the UK...we have a programme called the Antiques Roadshow. Someone took in a sealed bottle which they had found buried. Expert suggested bottle wasn't worth much and maybe they should open it and sample the contents. Expert took a swig. Wasn't great. Turns out it was a witch jar, contained pins and bits, and yes, the liquid was centuries old urine. The expert doesn't seem any the worse for drinking it.

[@zacharyryan484]

Thank you for making this!! This is so cool! 🤩

[@danawright777]

I thoroughly appreciate your videos. I am surprised you did not mention some of the German Pietistic groups that set up shop in Pennsylvania, e.g. the Ephrata Community of Johann Conrad Beissel, the Society of the Woman in the Wilderness of Johannes Kelpius, et cetera. Even the Quakers were esoteric with their Inner Light being similar to the Inner Word of Kerning and Alois Mailander. Thank you again for your academic approach to the esoteric. R+C

[@SammyJ96]

So happy found this channel!

[@BrelynnHeart]

Early American occultism... be still my heart🤗🤣

[@vickiburns1642]

My ancestor, Samuel Wardwell was a self professed astrologer and psychic. He also read palms. He was hanged by a witch on 9/22/1692 in Salem Village.

[@firegirl_lanae]

Dr. Sledge I greatly enjoy learning from you! Do you plan to ever do a video or two about HooDoo and how it has been used around the world? I'm so curious to see your take on it's history

[@helenbostock2350]

Great to hear good insights In the verdict text India yes we inside the body is a minny 🌌

[@anthonypautin]

Thank you so much for sharing, this is great knowledge to remember. 🙏🏻🤙🏼😁

[@marcusemmons2435]

Thank you so much for your work. I really enjoy learning from you. I keep getting stuck, though, whenever you give the prohibition of an action as evidence that that action. It makes me think that, perhaps, you didn't grow up in a fundamentalist family? Maybe you've never even read a Jack Chick comic book? If I'm correct, I'm glad for you. God bless.

[@johngagon]

I'm impressed by the receipt books by doctors like Zerubabel Endicott, some of which look like the brewing of magic potions. There's also Thomas Morton's story.

[@allgodsnomasters2822]

peeing it out then feeding to a dog to see if it repeats sounds more like a way of identifying herbal poisons, which is a very cool sort of magic

[@JackHiper]

Surprised there is enough info available to do this excellent video.

[@elem3ntkid]

Hey Dr! Hope all is well. Now consider this a request of sorts. I just picked up a fully illustrated version of Manly Hall's Secret Teachings of All Ages. Im fascinated by it. But you have an incredible background in this stuff, so what do you think about the book? Does it represent the mysteries accurately? Do you have any texts that might accompany or expand my understanding after reading STOAA? Thanks!

[@goose33]

I have it I think their is some good info but I HIGHLY doubt they would allow us to know the ACTUAL secrets Manly was a 33rd degree freemason so they literally aren't allowed to tell us anything of substance..

[@johnlomax2502]

Thank you for posting this, from a descendant of English American colonials.

[@jackalope2302]

the Philosopher of Fire! That is pretty freaking metal.

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Verily!

[@jackalope2302]

@@TheEsotericaChannel that and Organ of Mystic Perception... sounds like a missing Rush album

[@palomapieriniyormaza1327]

Great video! Will you be perhaps making content on esoteric and occult practices in Latin America?

[@yochanan770]

Didn't know about the Bermuda witches. I'll have to get to some research. I'm considering only referring to myself as "Godbeer" from now on.

[@thegreatermysteries4134]

Great video. 👍

[@phillipbernhardt-house6907]

Dr. Sledge, did you come across Thomas Morton and his New England colony of Merry-Mount/Marymount at all in your research? Very fascinating character, whom William Bradford and the Plymouth colony Puritans hated with a fervor that is noteworthy. He was an English folk religionist and Hermeticist, who came over and established a trading colony, hoping to interbreed with the Indigenous people, and he did so with neo-Dionysian rituals and other interesting things! He wrote a book called New English Canaan, which is easily available; and Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a short story about what happened in that situation, called "The May-Pole of Merry-Mount." Bradford also wrote his own account of what happened and how he took his men in there to shut down Morton's operation. So, that might add some interesting and useful data to the picture...which is left out far too often in the discussion of esoteric matters in the early colonies!

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Thanks for the reference, I'll have to look him up. Sounds like a great future episode!

[@phillipbernhardt-house6907]

@@TheEsotericaChannel Fantastic! I look forward to what you do on him! :)

[@andythedishwasher1117]

I'm really interested in what you mean by contrasting the Lockean, Deistic perspective with the Hermetic perspective. In my mind, they don't feel mutually exclusive or antonymous, but I also have a hard time pinning down a mental picture of the Hermetic perspective since the history of Hermetic philosophy seems so fraught with fundamental disagreements.

[@allgodsnomasters2822]

Anyone got good sources on Braucherie? Appalachiana and Pensylvanian folk magick?

[@BrelynnHeart]

The Red Church by C.R. Bilardi is a great all encompassing book if you don't have someone to teach you one on one.

[@varangianventure]

Not even 1 Solomon Kane or VVitch joke? I am impressed my good sir.

[@andrewkuiper8831]

Incredible subject. The Prospero's America book blew my mind. Why did no one tell me there was a transatlantic pansophist alchemical republic of letters that included John Winthrop's son? That should be American history 101.

[@Vroomerz]

Psalm 19:1 "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork." ESV translation

[@laoso8776]

But what does the Old Testament point to? Jesus and the New Testament or Kaballah and the actual messiah referred to in the Old Testament ?

[@eafg97]

Here in México there´s a story of a magus that came with Cortes, he was called Blas Botello, there´s is almost none information of him.

[@mouseydeb3245]

Not sure how I hopped on the Esoterica way back machine, but I hadn’t seen this, so it’s cool! Always interesting weird (boiling urine?) stuff. 🧐 Now I’ve got to see if I still have Cotton Mather on my shelves… Thanks Dr. Sledge!

[@cymbolic_space1832]

I have a question; why are there no Slavonic alchemists, hermeticists, occultists until more modern ones such as Gurdjieff and Ouspensky?

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Oh there were

[@the8thgable]

Reading chapter 7 of the Woodward text now. Omg.. 🍿

[@theludraman]

Good starting point for reading or learning about astrology? I’d be open to buying from your store if there’s any rare works you have access to from well know astrologers.

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Check out Chris Brennan's Hellenistic astrology

[@mariolozano5649]

I understand that you started with the British, however, curious about the practices of the Spanish, French, Dutch, the slaves and the natives and how the mixing of these affected each other.

[@necromancyteacher2481]

I'm curious to know what you think about Julius Evola's "The Hermetic Tradition".

[@poimandres777]

Those stray necromancers are getting to be a real problem here in Virginia. But seriously though this was a great video, thanks for putting this stuff out there.

[@danibissonnette1601]

I wonder if the witch cakes were unintentionally used in determining poisoning (ergotism or otherwise) as poisoning and witchcraft were often synonymous in the premodern world.

[@larrymarron1170]

You did good

[@Duchess_Van_Hoof]

Am strongly reminded of modern Evangelicals and their not-magic.

[@carrie5980]

5:05 omg that is terrifying!

[@TeslaAvenger]

"It's fine when I do it."

[@gm010379]

THANKYOU...

[@mypronounismaster4450]

"no matter how powerful your religion, it's never more powerful than desire.." ???

[@AlcoholAndAnimeNight]

It seems obvious at this point you should change your title to "The Doctor Of Fire." Super Metal.

[@NorvelCooksey]

My family came to Maryland in 1639. Catholics were flooding to Maryland.

[@karensimon5380]

An interesting side note. After William Bradford worked so hard to preserve his little band of Sepretists, bringing them to the New World to protect them from the Old, by the early 1900s, his ninth generation decendents had migrated to California and become... dastardly Catholics.

[@johngibbs799]

Getting double vision. 😵‍💫

[@roryravendotcom]

Minor language thing -- I don't think as anyone in Colonial New England would/could have used the word "hex." AFAIK, that word enters English with the arrival of the Pennsylvania Dutch later and further south.

[@pentelegomenon1175]

I never thought of almanacs as astrological, I'm still struggling with the idea actually, but it's funny to think of almanacs as New World astrological texts.

[@Sofspot1]

Referring to myself as a Dastardly Catholic from now on.

[@matthewlawrenson7508]

I guess that Jo Smith and his magic hat ...finding objects...similar thing.

[@michellegutierrez2119]

Seeking signs as a means of telling the future it is written as a sin ,although the Lord will show us signs and wonders and threw out the centuries since the beginning God has appeared to many martyrs by Devine Revelation.

[@سلمانقتل]

👍 good video

[@masterg6754]

curious why you don't use the K in magick?

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

Because that's not an academic convention

[@CravenMoorhead888]

I think alot of this was influenced by the natives they interacted with in these times, because those people had a much deeper and older connection to those kinds of practices. plus it was more socially acceptable since christianity wasn’t apart of the ancient cultures in the americas for ages

[@Dungeonkitty555]

lovee these videos i wish u had an instagram!!

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

nah, social media scares me more than any demons or black magic

[@larrymarron1170]

I wonder why you always get the same three, 4 the same or people putting a thumbs-down.

[@TheEsotericaChannel]

eh, can't please everyone, I guess.

[@sofijaradakovic328]

What about the natives belafs in colcnasztions