-I'm gonna go have my first ever
encounter with a witch.
I've got everything to learn
because I didn't even know
that being a witch
was a faith until, like, yesterday.
All I know about witches is what I've learned from movies
and "Harry Potter," the books,
even though I've only seen the movies of those.
So, just movies. So, let's go meet our witch!
Do I knock, or is there...
Hello?
-Hi!
-I'm a Muggle. Hello. -[ Laughs ]
-Hi, Zach, come on in.
-Okay. All right, hold on.
-I'm Essy.
-You don't look like a witch.
-Yeah, I don't look like a witch on the TV.
-So, how are you? -I'm good.
I'm awesome.
-I'm good, too. It's so good to meet you.
And I notice that you came in with a guitar.
Do you play music? -Yeah.
Yeah, I do. -What type of stuff do you play?
-Well, it's a big part
of my spiritual practice, actually.
I do a lot of channeling and singing,
and I kind of let songs come through from spirit.
-Just, like, whatever moves you, you play?
-Yeah. -That's awesome.
When I try and do that,
whatever spirit is trying to come through always
sounds like the same, like, noise.
-We're all open in different ways.
That's awesome.
-So, I'm gonna get to the faith question.
-Okay.
-How would you describe your faith?
-I am a Mystic and a witch.
I'm not super-big on words and labels,
but those are the ones I'd be most comfortable with.
-A Mystic witch.
-A Mystic and a witch, yeah.
-Which is different from a mystic pizza.
-Definitely. -So,
what is a Mystic witch?
-A lot of us who identify as witches,
I think -- First of all,
we're a huge pantheon
of all different kinds of people.
And we all might disagree
on what a witch is or what a Mystic is,
but when it comes down to it is we're very self-defining.
-What does it mean to be a witch to you?
-It means when I was really young,
I felt a sort of freakish connection with nature.
I collected crystals, and I made up songs.
It was how I sort of processed my relationship with the world.
And that, throughout my life,
has evolved into a knowledge
that we all carry wisdom,
and some of it is really old.
And I work with ancestral magics,
with old songs and old stories that want to come through.
So, I'm gonna do a little bit
of calling in some sound and channeling,
and we'll see what happens
because I never know what's gonna happen.
[music] This city light [music]
[music] It's ice, ice and fire [music]
[music] This city light [music]
[music] It's ice, ice and fire [music]
[music] Ice and fire [music]
[music] Serve us fine [music]
-When you were younger, like, what --
what age are we talking about here,
when you started doing your first songs?
-Tiny. -Tiny.
The tiny age. The very small age.
-Tiny. Like 4 and 5.
-So, what were these first tunes about?
-You know, I always felt a lot of compassion
for earth creatures,
and, you know, I wasn't afraid of bugs.
I talked to bugs, you know?
I was terrified of spiders as a little kid,
and so I spent hours and hours
meditating with them and spending time with them
because I wanted to understand them.
-Is that at the core of your Mystic belief --
is the oneness of nature and animals?
-It is so much more complex than that.
-Sorry. -Yes, absolutely.
Yes, and.
When you say,
"Is that a oneness with nature?
Is that the core of things?" That's a piece.
That's the physical world. That's the world
that we can interact with with great ease, right?
It's pretty easy to go for a walk in the woods.
It's easy to put your hands down into the earth,
if you're willing to get a little dirty.
What's not easy is communing with your ancestors --
is reaching back and feeling and knowing
where you've come from.
And that's a lot of the work we do, as well,
which is not as tangible.
It's not as physical.
-What are we gonna be experiencing tonight?
-We're just gonna do a little bit of ritual practice.
I might do some singing.
I'm not sure how many people are here.
It is hard to get witches in front of a camera sometimes.
Especially to say, "We're gonna do ritual
in front of a camera." People are like, "But why?"
-Is it because you guys
are still upset about "Hocus Pocus"?
'Cause I was not --
That doesn't seem like a fair representation
now that I've met an actual witch.
-Oh, my God. You're so funny. -It's very, very different.
-That is so funny. So, we are here just to gather
and do a really simple ritual
and have Zach hang out with us in this new experience
and do ritual with us.
So, that's really exciting.
So, I'm gonna invite
in some of our elemental energies.
This candle here is for the North, for the earth.
One of my favorite ways to welcome the earth
is to do a little of this. [ Grunts ]
Say, "Welcome, earth!"
-Welcome, earth! -Welcome, earth!
-[ Howls ]
-What would you say it was
about this particular walk in faith
with magic and mysticism
that spoke to you
more than any other religion?
-I started out really young.
I naturally had faith.
So, when people said, you know, "Here's
God and here's Christianity," I bought into it,
but I never bought into the mainstream,
wholesale, corporate
Christianity. I hate to say that.
There's so many amazing tools out there,
and I guess I like my pagan community.
I mean, honestly, above all else,
we're just really not that serious,
and we're really funny.
So, our next friend that we can welcome is air.
Do you want to light this one here?
Awesome.
So, air is all about our thoughts and our emotions.
And one of my favorite, favorite ways
to call in the air
is to make bird sounds.
[ All whistling, cawing ]
[ Laughs ]
-Can I ask --
Just because when I think of,
you know,
pagans, because I'm uninformed and uneducated,
I tend to think of, you know,
ritual sacrifice, doing those sorts of things.
Is that ever part of it?
I've watched a lot of movies.
-Some of us hunt and eat our food, you know, with our hands.
And I think there's a common --
There's a feeling in pagan community about,
you know, "If I can't look at it in its eyes
and thank it for its life, then I don't want to eat it."
That is ritual. That is sacrifice.
Looking at an animal and saying, "I love you,
and I'm blessing your life, and I'm grateful for the energy
that you're gonna bring into my body
to nourish me and nourish
my family and those that I love."
So, my favorite thing to call is above
because we are stardust.
You know,
if you think of the world in terms of science,
everything was once something else,
and all of this at one point either was or will be stardust,
including our bodies.
We are many things.
Honoring those contradictions
and living in a way that says
that we can contradict ourselves,
we can change our minds,
we can, you know,
be exactly as we are in the moment,
it's just reality to us.
It's saying, you know,
"I want to know you where you are.
I don't want to know you where you're pretending to be
or where you were yesterday."
-What has been the most meaningful thing
to come out of one of these rituals for you?
-Honestly, for me, it's just a lot
of watching people let
go of really heavy stuff that they're carrying.
Like, seeing somebody who is always so quiet
and reserved suddenly, like,
go out and just scream at the stars
and just like,
"I'm done with this!"
you know?
Honestly, it's a rare human gift.
It's really beautiful and really special.
I really always feel so grateful
when I get to see people moved through stuff like that.
-Probably won't happen with cameras and sound guys
in the way. -No.
No, it's really different.
And there's only so much --
Like, only so much of a container
we can create in this way,
but I'm really excited that we can do this
just to show people,
like, you know, witches aren't scary.
Like I said before, there's so many different kinds of witches
and so many different ways we work in the world.
But insofar as I know my witches
and my communities,
we're kind of just people
who are willing to go really deep
and people who really are deep in the practice
of loving each other in community.
-So, I just had a really peaceful time
with a witch and a circle
of cool people
that I've never met before.
And I did not expect a witch to be so calm
and connected with the universe.
There's always something that's in me
that struggles with, you know,
like, how genuine can I be
and how much of a comedian do I have to be?
And Essy
has this very welcoming,
genuine personality
that makes you just feel more at ease
than I would have been,
you know, making bird noises.
And the fact that she can just sing on a whim
about whatever -- She's the Wayne Brady of witches.
So, kudos to her for being a really good witch.
I would need a ritual to get down from these stairs.
Seriously, guys. I don't have a joke.
We're just stuck here at the top of these steps.
See, this is where the broomstick thing
would actually be helpful if it were true.