Toil and Trouble: Witchcraft for the Apocalypse (and beyond!)

Witchcraft is back, and more needed in the world than ever. In these dark and often worrying times, what role do witches have in nurturing themselves, the wider world, and their environments, and in preparing for, and thriving in, this strange apocalyptic period? What magic does the 21st century witch have at their disposal? And what are the uses of that magic? If you’ve ever wished to learn the ways witchcraft and magic might help us navigate crisis and cultivate power, this course is for you.

Join Dr Alice Tarbuck and Dr Claire Askew for a twelve-week, interactive online course that aims to unpack some of the purposes, trials, pitfalls and joys of navigating witchcraft in 2020 and beyond.

Learn about:

• what the women of the witch trials might tell us about resistance and speaking back to power.
• safely foraging for and concocting immune-boosting substances.
• spellwork for these hard times.
• setting intentions for the new year.
• different divination techniques and how to use them.
• practical exercises to help prepare for an unusual Yuletide.

There will be six taught weeks, and six self-directed weeks with reading and homework, as well as an online group to stay in touch!

All taught classes run from 7.00-8.30pm on Zoom.

2nd November: Intro + SPELLWRITING AND JOURNALING for dark times

Week beginning 9th November: Reading and homework

16th November: PRACTICAL PANDEMIC WITCHCRAFT – immune boosting tonics

Week beginning 23rd November: Reading and homework

30th November: DIVINATION for dark times

Week beginning 7th December: Reading and homework

14th December: YULE – the apocalyptic festival!

Week beginning 21st December: Christmas holiday, reading & (light!) homework

Week beginning 28th December: Christmas holiday, reading & (light!) homework

3rd January: NEW YEAR – setting intentions

Week beginning 10th January: Reading and homework

17th January: FINAL SESSION – building a sustainable practice

The course will cost £120, and two scholarship places are available.

Toil and trouble: towards a responsible witchcraft is an intersectional, accessible course that is open to anyone over the age of 16. People of all genders and none are welcome to join us.

About the tutors:

Dr Alice Tarbuck is the author of A Spell in the Wild: A Year and Six Centuries of Magic (Two Roads, 2020) and Grid (Sad Press, 2018), and an academic. Her work on witchcraft has been featured in 404 Inks Nasty Women, The Dangerous Women Project, Edinburgh University’s Uncanny Bodies project, and the Fiction and Feeling project. She has been invited to speak on witchcraft as feminist practice by the Magickal Women Conference, Wigtown Book Festival, Scottish PEN and others. Additionally, she has taught workshops for the National Library of Scotland, the Scottish Poetry Library and further afield. When she was born, a white wizard came to her house to bless her, and this, she suspects, is where the trouble started.

Dr Claire Askew is the author of This changes things (Bloodaxe, 2016) and All The Hidden Truths (Hodder & Stoughton, 2018). Her writing on historical women accused of heresy and witchcraft have been published by The Dangerous Women Project, The Scottish Review of Books and Amelias Magazine, among others. In 2017 she was awarded the Jessie Kesson Fellowship to work on a manuscript of poems about these real-life witches and their stories. Claire is the likely-descendant of Anne Askew, the poet and scholar whose writings and activities led to her execution by burning at the stake in 1546. In addition to her PhD, Claire holds a PDA in Adult Teaching and has taught at Edinburgh College, the University of Edinburgh, Arcadia University and in a variety of community settings.