‘Darkness is Healthy and Holy’ - Pam Grossman
5/21/202648 min
What happens when we recognise creativity as a form of magic?
Writer, curator, and cultural critic Pam Grossman joins Joanna Ebenstein for a conversation about witchcraft, creativity, death, and the unseen forces that shape our lives.
Best known for her books Magic Maker and Waking the Witch, Grossman reflects on her lifelong relationship with magic — from childhood fascinations with mythology and divination to publicly embracing witchcraft as both a spiritual and creative practice. Together, she and Joanna explore how modern witchcraft honours darkness, shadow, and mortality without equating them with evil, and why rituals of re...
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First 90 secondsJess Gunesekera· Panelist0:00
[bell dings] This is an Overcoat Media production.
Joanna Ebenstein· Host0:04
[mysterious music] Welcome to Memento Morbid, where we explore death, life, and the in-between. It's hosted by me, Joanna Ebenstein, founder of Morbid Anatomy, which is an organization and community devoted to exploring these very themes. During this episode of Memento Morbid, if any names, books, ideas, or artworks spark your curiosity, check out the podcast show notes for more. You'll also find a link to our Substack, which contains imagery discussed and additional content. Today we're going to meet a woman who has been devoted for years to excavating and rethinking the figure of the witch, and looking at the relationship between creative practice, which includes art-making, music, and film, and pretty much anything else you can imagine, and magic itself.
Pam Grossman· Guest0:59
[tape rewinds] Darkness and shadow is a healthy part of experience. And I think it's also important to make the distinction that darkness is not evil. And certainly people confuse this and think that witches are evil, and by and large that is not true, at least in modern practice. There's always assholes in every group, right? [laughs] But generally speaking, like, the witches I know are so loving, and a lot of