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Welcome to Chaotic Folk Magic.

This blog is one of many ways that I want to begin expanding how I share information - not just through video snippets or about my shop products, but a place that I can share things that are on my mind, recent rituals, holiday celebrations, ancestral magic, and Italian American folk magic.

As my practice begins to grow into more seasonally based, leaning deeply into food and mundane ritual, I find myself yearning to write in a way that isn't just for the small text posts I'd place on Instagram or in video format. Writing is my first love, my always love, and I like a chance to return to it.

This is a space to explore research and more, where I can, ultimately, create musings, prompts, questions, and elaborate further on the things I create for Instagram. 

To introduce you to this blog, let's talk about folk magic.

I talk a lot about being an Italian-American folk magic practitioner on my Youtube, Instagram, and more. But what does this mean? What even IS folk magic? Is folk magic part of witchcraft? Is folk Catholicism an important part of all folk magics? How do you practice folk magic? 

Folk magic is the magic of the people. 

Folk magic relies on a few things to function:

1. The people who are practicing it. 

2. The culture of the region.

3. The materials that are accessible to the practitioner.

The magic in the region of Calabria, Italy, will be incredibly different than the magic of North Germany, but both of them function similarly. Folk magic is practical - it does not concern itself with the great mysteries of the Universe, but rather looks to see how to benefit ones self and those around us. Nor is it picky with materials - oftentimes the things that are needed for folk magic are plants, animal remains, and tools that were easy to get for the folk practitioner. Working with your bioregion and with the land you are on is ingrained in folk magic. Folk magic will also look at what the people need and do not have access to. Are folks having difficulty accessing healthcare? Are they struggling to make rent or facing possibility of eviction? Do they feel unsafe in their home and need spiritual protection?

Who are the folk?

 

Some questions to ask when exploring folk magic include...

Who is practicing it?

What are their problems?

What are the solutions for these problems, and how can folk magic help?

Who are the folk?

The folk magic of Italy 50-60 years ago is incredibly different from the folk magic alive in Italy today or even the diasporic folk magic Italian-Americans use, but magic of the people will change and grow with the people. When people move, their beliefs, magic, and culture follow them, then work to assimilate and become something new that better serves those practitioners in a new region or country.

One of the most important things to learn about to understand folk magic is cultural context - folk magic is existent because of the people, and the people are affected by culture in every aspect. This may be a culture that is born out of diaspora or a diaspora from being a particular country. As an example, the culture of Turtle Island (So-called America), the culture of my Italian ancestors, and the diasporic practices that came from the immigration of my Italian ancestors onto Turtle Island all inform my culture and my practice.

We can look at Italian folk magic and see rituals and divinatory practices that place importance on woman centric issues, namely birth, divination about husbands, fertility, love, and more. While it isn’t all that folk magic has to offer, the fact that most Italian folk practitioners were women allows us to understand why there is emphasis on petitioning female Saints and the Madonna above entities like Jesus, God, or even male Saints. Saint Lucy, Saint Anne, Saint Mary Magdalene, Saint Rosalia, Agatha of Sicily, and various apparitions of the Madonna (Saint Mary the Mother of God) are often invoked during difficult births, when asking about future husbands, and healing rituals for mal’occhio (evil eye), vermi (worms), and more. 

We can also see regional Saints having incredible importance, including the local church, Patron saint of the town, or namesake Saints - all of which may be petitioned for specific requests. This plays into our understanding of local folk magic - the folk, namely women, sought out magic and assistance for problems they were having by way of entities that looked like them, had experienced what they had, and they could relate to. (Clements and Malpezzi)

Folk magic, like I said earlier, works practically (in my opinion/experience). This doesn’t mean that it isn’t, in itself, spiritual and incredibly animistic, but oftentimes the spells and magic centered around a particular folk magic will reflect the issues needing to be solved to help the people.

In Italian folk magic, this plays out in folk medicine and remedies in the South where doctors were more inaccessible or too expensive - rather than going to a doctor, people would oftentimes go to see a healer. When doctors became more available in South Italy, this didn’t necessarily change - sometimes healers would recommend a client to a doctor, or a doctor would recommend a client to a healer if they felt that this was more spiritual than physical.

Many spiritual ailments in Italy were linked to very real and physical issues - epilepsy, malaria, fever, and shingles were attributed to jettature (intentional evil eye), while loss of breast milk (milk theft) was attributed to mal’occhio (evil eye/jealousy). The cures for these spiritual ailments often will include herbs and methods that will actually work to relieve the pain or symptoms of the illness, such as certain herbs being ingested or applied on the skin. Olive oil mixed with plaster is an common remedy in Calabria for second degree burns, while olive oil is also used in the common cure for evil eye (Indigenous Healing Traditions in Calabria). While Sicily uses a particular seaweed grown off its coast for certain rituals, towns in Italy further away from the ocean will use plants found in their bioregion.

These often coincide with plants given importance for healing and protective properties in Ancient Greece and Rome - not just because of the similar climate, but because this knowledge has in many ways been passed down through generations. Italian folk practitioners may not cite Pliny or other Ancient Greek naturalists when referring to horehound, chamomile, mallow or vervain as a cure-all, but they have proverbs about the plants and know they will heal a matter of ailments both spiritual and physical. 

Folk magic in the modern age looks a bit different than it did for our ancestors - we may not have access to the same herbs they used. For example, St John’s Wort, a well-known plant in Italy used in a variety of cures throughout Southern Europe (including l’acqua di san giovanni or Saint John’s Water) is illegal to get in Colorado in it’s plant or seed form. I can get the dried version of the plant, but this version has little to no medicinal usage. Similarly, a lot of beliefs that our ancestors held due to cultural context and teachings from their ancestors are changing. Our ability to find more information than ever before, with our ideas and our beliefs, and with it our folk magic changes as well.

This magic is the magic of the people, and a main part of reconnecting to it is understanding cultural context, learning from teachers, from community, and looking to see what our ancestors did. But we are also the people - folk magic asks you what you and your community need right now. It also asks you to identify and connect with you community in a very real and tangible way. This may be immediate family, a community at work, or even a community over the internet. How can you help them and help yourself? What methods intrinsic to folk magic will help them right now? How do we move forward while being of service to both our community and ourselves?

Is folk magic witchcraft?

So, is folk magic witchcraft? Yes and no. Folk magic often existed as unspoken rites. There are regional words used to describe folk rituals, or they are just the “things we do”. In Italy, “witches” were the bad guys. We can delve further into how the term “witch” has been used in antisemitism and to serve antisemitism by the Church in a separate post, however it’s important to note that most folk practitioners would be hesitant call themselves witches. The negative connotation with “witch” still exists in many countries today, and it’s only recently that the reclamation of the term as a word of empowerment has begun.

Witchcraft as a historic term means Other. To point at a woman who had autonomy and call her witch was to Other her. To point at Queer folks and call them witch was to Other. To look down upon Indigenous spirituality by calling it witchcraft is to Other. The other side of this term, historically, is persecution and demonization - witch was a term used to harm primarily people of color and their spiritualities and to label them as such benefitted the Christian church’s attempts to erase them.

There is power in being the Other - to be a witch is to reclaim the Other. 

With all of these connotations in mind, we can understand why folk practitioners would not utter the word “witch” - they would refer to someone as a healer, someone who dealt with bad spirits, someone who could throw the eye, but never use that term. In keeping with historical tradition, folk magic is not witchcraft. In my opinion, to label folk magic as witchcraft often does a disservice to the rich history of folk magic as well as the history of the term “witchcraft”.

While now we are more comfortable referring to ourselves as witches, many are not - and keeping these terms separate allows room in folk magic spaces for people who both are and are not comfortable calling their Craft witchcraft.

One can also argue that folk magic and witchcraft have opposed each other throughout history. Witchcraft has been the Craft of the Self, of the Other, while folk magic has been the Craft of the Community. Both of these Crafts, in the modern day, can meet.

I am both a witch and a practitioner of folk magic. I practice things that my ancestors would consider witchcraft while also being informed by them to practice my folk magic. However, I still make room for the separation of each within my practice. You will hear me call myself a folk witch - this is a new term that allows for the ideas of folk magic (community, accessibility, cultural context, necessity) to inform my witchcraft and why I cast spells. Although I may refer to myself as a witch, most of my practice has been informed by the ideas found in folk magic and the way in which folk magic functions, and I can't speak with certainty to how other practitioners categorize witchcraft, folk magic, and what terms they're comfortable using for themselves.

Is folk magic Catholicism?

Folk magic will function as an extension of the people, their beliefs, and the culture around them. When we look at this in different countries, it will function differently.

In Italy, a region where the culture is and was heavily syncretized with Catholicism, more Catholic entities and ideas are brought into the practice. However, this is not the same all over the world. Where there are people, there is folk magic. Italian Jews have the folk magic of Italian Jewry, for example.

Furthermore, folk magic including elements of folk Catholicism is not Catholicism. To understand how folk magic functions, we have to define and separate quite a few ideas.

The Church: An institution that includes Christianity.

Christianity: A religion.

Catholicism: A sect of Christianity.

Folk Catholicism: the Catholicism of the people.

When we talk about the Church and Christianity, we are often understanding it from the lens that we grew up with. If you are in America, this is American Christianity that often (but not always) centers Jesus and the Church. While not all American Christians will have the same belief set, we often see Christianity in politics, conservative spaces, and more that show that a large amount of American Christians will use their beliefs to harm others.

This is a generalization - there are Christians who don’t believe in this foundation or usage of their beliefs. However, certain sects of people and Churches do, and oftentimes these will be the loudest representations. It’s incredibly difficult to separate Christianity, a religion, from the Church, an institution. Christianity is part of the Church, but the Church does not define Christianity. Furthermore, different sects of Christianity will have different belief sets that will inform their opinions, politics, and experiences in the religion. We often see Jesus prioritized, certain mistranslated sections of the Bible quoted to show that Christianity says homosexuality is a sin, so on and so forth.

Catholicism is a certain sect of Christianity that is often looked down upon by other branches, namely for its worship of Saints. It does not always prioritize seeing Jesus and God as the only entities that are important, but rather works with a large branch of canonized individuals who can perform miracles and help us in our day to day. While Catholics will never “worship” these Saints, they will venerate and honor them as Holy Dead.

Folk Catholicism, similar to folk magic, is the Catholicism of the people. It is not necessarily informed by the Church or the doctrine of Christianity as a whole. Many folk Catholics wouldn’t even consider themselves so - they would just do things that the “Church would frown upon”. Making your own holy water, creating your own ashes for Ash Wednesday, and functioning with beliefs that are opposed to the Church or step outside of its teachings places you in the realm of folk Catholicism. It is no longer Catholicism informed by the Church and taught by the Church, but a spirituality that creates relationship with spirits in Catholicism that aren’t dictated by the Church.

Folk Catholicism in Italy often functions in a way that the Church disapproves of. Many of the healing methods and rituals in Italian and Italian American folk magic would be considered witchcraft or sacrilege by the Church. Catholicism in Italy also still contains traditions that are reminiscent of Ancient Roman religion - while these rituals or traditions are no longer considered paganism because they are so syncretized into the veneration of Saints and the culture of Italy, they are easily spotted. Certain temples of Roman gods became churches of particular Saints and certain rituals associated with the worship of Roman gods continued on in veneration and holidays of Saints.

Folk Catholicism in Italy is not just a spirituality that is Catholic outside of the Church - it is remnants of older beliefs, rituals, and traditions passed down through generations to the modern day. Folk Catholicism is not just a separation of the Church and the religion - it is sometimes a belief in opposition to the Church itself. I am a queer, neurodivergent witch who practices folk magic. The Church would not welcome me, nor would it welcome many of my siblings and peers in folk magic. Folk Catholicism is about forming a relationship with Saints, spirits, and even prayers outside of the ideas of the Church and even the Bible.

When people ask me how I can worship a goddess outside of Christianity while working with Saints, my response is always “easily”. I have never concerned myself with the teachings of Christianity within the Church - I have taken time to commune with the spirits found within Catholicism itself and seen if they are right for me. In Italian American folk magic, and many folk magics, Jesus and God are not the spirits we go to or invoke in times of trouble. It is the Saints who look like us, who have experienced things we have, who will look at us and our troubles and want to help us because they faced similar troubles or experienced similar things in their lifetimes.

The Madonna gave birth and raised a son only to lose him in a brutal way, left to grieve. Saint Lucy was publicly and brutally tortured and beaten because she refused to be wed in an arranged marriage. Saint Agatha was mutilated, imprisoned, and raped by a man who wanted her wed to him. Saint Rita was abused by her husband. La Madonna Schiavona is known as a patron saint to queer individuals, petitioned and worshipped by the femminielli, a third gender known only to Italy.

Our Saints are not just a Catholic entity, they are our Ancestors and Holy Dead, our teachers and mentors, and oftentimes we seek them out because they will assist us in the areas we most need help with - this may be a top surgery, protection while performing sex work, or even revenge on an abuser or assaulter. When we move past the teachings of the Church, we realize that these spirits are not just within it - they exist outside of it, perform miracles and assist us because they too, were once human, and they too have gone through things that we are asking for help with. Our Saints are not just dead and canonized, but folk Saints and living Saints who assist us in our path and help us to get closer to our understanding of the Universe.

Many people who identify as folk Catholics or use elements of folk Catholicism in their practice can include those who disagree with the Church as an institution, those with religious trauma from the Church, or even those who don’t identify as Catholics. Many folk practitioners who use folk Catholicism in their practice do so without ever stepping foot in a Church - they learn how to interact with, venerate, and honor the Saints through their elders and teachers rather than from the institution.

The folk Christianity of Hoodoo uses different herbs and invokes different Saints than the folk Christianity of Italy or Germany, but all have this as an element in their practice. Both prioritize different rituals for the needs of the people and call on different spirits to help them in these traditions. Folk Catholicism and folk magic has to be understood not only through a cultural context, but through a sociological, anthropological, and folkloric one. It has to not only be separated from the Church, but considered individually and separately between each person who practices it.

How do I begin practicing folk magic?

There's no one way to begin practicing the magic of the people, but this is for certain: You are one of the people.

Folk magic is accessible. It asks what spirits you are around and what materials you have on hand. It asks you what the people and what you need to not just survive, but to thrive. 

Folk magic is resistance. Whether you are reclaiming the magic of your ancestors, forging a new path, or finding the space in between, to practice folk magic is to serve your community. To be a part of the folk, and to show up for not just yourself, but your spirits, your ancestors, and your community in a way that is authentic to what you can offer.

Folk magic is spirit and necessity led. What spirits do you want to bring intimate relationships in with? What do the people need?

Folk magic is rooted in the people. Be culturally cognizant of a community you are moving into and learning from. Be ready to learn from those around you, be held accountable, and be honest about a journey to reconnection.

Folk magic is yours. Folk magic is for the people. You are the people.

WORKS CITED

Black Madonnas: Feminism, religion, and politics in Italy by Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum

Italian-American Folklore by Malpezzi & Clements

Indigenous Healing Traditions in Calabria 

Della Medicina by Lisa Fazio, Published 2023 by Inner Traditions

Reading Recommendations:

 "Strega" by Lisa Fazio.

"Appalachian Folk Magic: Generations of “Granny Witchcraft” and Spiritual Work" by Emma Cieslik

"Spells, Saints, and Streghe" by Sabina Magliocco

"Sister Karol's Book of Spells, Blessings, and Folk Magic" by Karol Jackowski

"Italian American Folk Magic" by Mary Grace Fahrun

"Mal’occhio. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Evil Eye" by Agata De Santis

"Folk Magic, Witchcraft, What's the Difference?" by Scott Richardson-Red

Spiritus Arcanum's Folk Magic Book Selection