Interviewer: All right, hello my bunnies and bats. Welcome back to my channel.

I am here today with Christopher Penczak. That's how you say your last name,
right?

Christopher Penczak: That is right.

Interviewer: Penczak, success.

[laughter]

Interviewer: I just was here being like oh shit what if that's not how it's said,
even though I've heard you say it in person at Pantheacon so I shall remember
these things.

[laughter]

Interviewer: We met at Pantheacon during your thing, what is that called? Is

that a panel?

Christopher: Presentation I guess.

Interviewer: Presentation, during your presentation on Mandrake which I

thought was fascinating because I’ve been getting super into herbalism and
tincture making and essences and stuff like that. I’ve always been curious about
Mandrake because I was like this sounds really cool.

Christopher: [laughs]

Interviewer: That was super fun especially since it was my first time in California
first of all. You're also technically East Coast though you're not Coast technically.
You're from the east like me because I’m from New Brunswick in Canada. You're
from the east like me but that was my first time that far into the States. The
furthest I had been before was New York City’s so that was exciting. Also, big
pagan witchcrafty conventions, super exciting especially since around here it's
such a small community. Seeing everyone come together from everywhere was
awesome.

Christopher: It was pretty amazing.

Interviewer: How many years have you been going to Pantheacon?

Christopher: I think my first year was maybe 2002 and I've not gone to all of
them since then but I've only skipped out maybe four or five.

Interviewer: Nice, I had literally not heard of it until August of last year and I was
like I’m going.

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[laughter]

Christopher: It's pretty big, it's probably the biggest indoor US [unintelligible
00:02:17] and all that. I don't think there's anything bigger at the moment.

Interviewer: Also the fact that it's indoor is a really big thing in the witchy pagan
community I think. Almost everything is in a [inaudible 00:02:29].

Christopher: You do a lot of those too but I do those [unintelligible 00:02:31]

[laughs]

Interviewer: Yes. [laughs] It was great meeting you there by the way. For people
on my channel who might not know you because I used to have a separate
witchcraft paganism channel on YouTube but now I'm combining them into this
one channel just to be whatever the heck I want to put on it. For my subscribers
who aren't in the pagan witchy community can you--

[sound cut]

Christopher: I’ve written autism healing self-help type of stuff. I'm a co-founder
of the Temple of Witchcraft. I travel the country and the world teaching
[inaudible 00:03:08] to collect.

Interviewer: All the books that you've written because you've written a lot. What
do you think is your personal favorite?

Christopher: At the moment it changes over time but at the moment probably
my favorite book that's in print is The Mighty Dead.

Interviewer: Cool.

Christopher: That's probably closest to my [unintelligible 00:03:24] community

so that's probably my favorite.

Interviewer: What do you think is the fan favorite? So to speak. The one that
almost everyone has read?

Christopher: Popular book is the first one on the Temple series The Inner
Temple of Witchcraft that's still [inaudible 00:03:37] because my best seller and
that's the one I sign the most when people come bring it to book signings and
such. That's probably the most popular because I think it's an in-depth beginning
so a lot of people start-- maybe it deals a lot with energy and consciousness and
meditation they'll go back to it. If they've been practicing for a while I think you
can still get some gems out of it.

Interviewer: Like one of those books that you keep going back to.

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Christopher: I still keep going back to my teacher's first book Power of The
Witch. I read it every couple of years and I still get little gems out of it or things I
didn't notice before [sound cut].

Interviewer: Awesome. The first book that I heard from you was I think it's the
one I have seen with your name on it. That's just because our local area, our
local spot the Morgan and Bridget who have adopted our little group. It's like one
half of the year the Morgan gets us, the other half Bridget.

[laughter]

Interviewer: They don't like to cross paths very much. [laughs]

Christopher: That's funny.

Interviewer: I mainly wanted to do an interview with you because I've seen that
at Pantheacon you did a thing on Mandrake and then herbalism and herbal allies
and things like that so [inaudible 00:04:44] working with herbs and plants.

Christopher: I desire to be a better healer. I first started getting involved in

magic and witchcraft and you get the archetype of the witches being the wise
one at the edge of the village. People would go to you for remedies and readings
and spells and all that. The first healings I learned were really profound but they
were really psychic based and energy based. I took a little diversion into the
world of healings and I got involved in flower essences. My sister had this really
profound experience with the flower essence consultant she was really stuck in
something in her life and my traditional therapy and energy work and Reiki and
things like that and just still couldn't move through. She found this guy who is
doing flower essence consultations and she was a witch too so she was into
nature and flowers and just had such a profound experience. I was really blown
away by how much she shifted.

I started going for the flower essences too and I was having some health
problems at the time and he really came from that idea that health issues are
rooted in your emotions, in your mind. We really transformed some things
physically through neurophysical medicine, just through the flowers. He started
offering classes about that and I started taking some of the classes and I
became a flower essence consultant myself. That just opened up [sound cut].

I think when we get into [sound cut].

Learn a lot of books that will say, "This herb is for protection, this herb is for love,
this herb is for healing." But you don't really get into the personalities of the
individual plants.

The flower essences, each one had what I call today really a spirit medicine, but

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they called it a vibration [sound cut].

That community really introduced me to medicinal herbalism, and I was really

lucky to meet a medicinal herbal teacher who is [sound cut].

He was about the medicines and the chemicals and the actions in the body. She
was also really deeply involved in your relationship with nature and how nature
was essentially a goddess and all really fit well with me as a witch, even the-
being classed as a witch. That opened me up to that, then a lot of it was just my
own experimentations with the idea that the plants are [inaudible 00:06:38] from
you, what can you teach me? Each one has a different type of lesson. [laughs]

Interviewer: That was great. That was my first time working with flower
essences specifically because I went to reclaiming witch camp that October
before. That's where I discovered tinctures and working with tinctures. It was my
first foray into herbal use. I used herbs a lot as in charm bags and especially in
like kitchen witchery, kind of cooking magic stuff, but I had never gone into it as
in an herb can actually heal you physically so then I got really into tinctures. I
have one right here, it's like my favorite.

It's called Self Heal Euro and Violet. I don't know if that says if or IT, and Star of
Bethlehem, the best because I work in a mental health field so it's just like calm
me down. But I found the flower [inaudible 00:07:35] of the flower is like the
spirit of it. What is like a really different way of looking at things what I found
really--like if someone's interested in [unintelligible 00:07:45] do you think your
recommendations will be for a complete newbie?

Christopher: [unintelligible 00:07:49] to go to the local health food store. Most

health stores have a [inaudible 00:07:52]. A name might stick out to you an
idea to make you think, "Oh I need that." The beautiful thing about flower
essence is that they're--because they have no chemical to them they are not
going to mix with any medicines or prescriptions so I do big public [unintelligible
00:08:09] people.

Whenever I do a public event either homeopathic or it's a flower essence.

There's no real chemical to it. It's not going to interfere with prescriptions, it's not
going to interfere with physical health, but it's really going to bring the spirit of the
plant to it. I think [sound cut]

Interesting. I get a lot of witches and pagans will joke about Raymond Buckland's
book as being the old big blue book. [inaudible 00:08:30] the flower essence
society it's a big kind of encyclopedia of all the different flower essences out
there.

Interviewer: Cool. That's awesome. What about someone who has been
working with flower essences and--Wait, am I still working? Can you hear me?

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Christopher: I can hear you but you've stopped moving.

Interviewer: Okay. Computer function, yes? Am I moving now?

Christopher: Excellent.

Interviewer: Yay. Someone, who say is into flower essences already, like
someone who's been using the experiential part but wants to start making their
own or start growing their own flowers to how-- Where to go for information on
how to make essences or do you have a specific way that you do it or anything
like that?

Christopher: [unintelligible 00:09:18] books that are experiential or how-to

instructions. I want to say that one of my first books was Diane Steine's book. It's
very pagan oriented and very magically oriented. The difficulty can be a lot of the
flower essence books [sound cut].

They're not chemical medicines, they really want to be accepted in some circles
as medicines, as alternative [sound cut].

Somebody's made rather than empowering you to make your own. But if you
google [sound cut] it's fairly easy to make and a lot of people can be very
scientific with it. Diane Stein takes a little bit of that approach when she wants to
have gloves and tongs [sound cut].

Make them, they are very ritualistic about it but in ways that are more organic. So
I just pick the flowers myself, it's very much eyeballing the measurements, I don't
measure things out so deeply because it's not chemically based. It's really
[unintelligible 00:10:02] witchcraft and I read about it in my book The Plant
Spirit Familiar. If you want a witch's [unintelligible 00:10:04] those are two good
places to go.

Interviewer: Do you have any recommendations for someone who might not be
particularly witchy or pagan who wants to get into-- like maybe they are more into
the New Age or the less spiritual side of things but kind of interested in that
area?

Christopher: A good way to start with that is any of the writings of Dr. Edward
Bach. It's kind of funny because some people end with B-A-C-H, whether it's
Bach or Berch. He is the guy who originated [inaudible 00:10:32]. He had really
clinical writings and he had really esoteric writings. If you follow his writing,
they're all still in print. You can find some of them online, you could find them on
Amazon. My favorite book of his this much more of his esoteric one, the system
called The Twelve Healers. It was a way [inaudible 00:10:46].

Interviewer: That actually sounds really interesting. [laughs]

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Christopher: You can adapt it to when you're having transits of difficult things
and it'll still help you through it. I really like that.

Interviewer: That's really cool because I've been really into astrology since I was
very young.

Christopher: It's called The Twelve Healers. It's not easy to find but it's out there
still.

Interviewer: That's awesome. When it comes to herbalism and flower essences

and stuff like that, do you mind sharing a bit about what your first experiences
with it were like? What if you remember what essence it was and that sort of
thing?

Christopher: When I first went for my first flower essence consultation, I was
having some liver problems. In a health check-up, my liver enzymes were high. I
was just getting into the holistic health idea [inaudible 00:11:35] in your life, and
in Asian medicine, in Chinese traditional medicine, [inaudible 00:11:39] having
a hard time processing the poison of anger. Often I was like, "Oh no, we don't
want to do that." He's like, "The issue might be that you've gained a bit of weight,
it'll be a fatty liver syndrome that can cause the enzyme to go up." I was actually
a really angry person underneath the surface. I had a lot of repressed stuff as
growing up as a gay male in a formerly Catholic family, in Catholic schools, and
I'm discovering myself through witchcraft, and really holding onto a lot of the
times where they have to kind of process where they came from to be who they
are. I wasn't really processing very well and I was probably just done with college
at that time.

Interviewer: Yes, that can be a lot of anger. See that there is just every way that
you can possibly be different from your family.

Christopher: Really, I don't think witchcraft was helpful for me. I was trying to
find more tools based in nature. I brought that to the flower essence consultant
and he actually gave me flower essences of all the liver herbs. [inaudible
00:12:35] is a great herb for liver disease, but dandelion flower essence is really
great for processing anger and really kind of getting in touch with those core
patterns and emotions. I had a really profound experience with it. I do realize
how sensitive I might be to it. I went thinking this is like a cure. I'm angry, "Take
this flower essence. You'll no longer be angry."

That's how it works. It helps you process [inaudible 00:12:59]. I went for a job
interview. I was supposed to be volunteering doing Reiki for this clinic. Then at
the last minute, the clinic volunteer director really wanted somebody to give
people rides to and from the clinic, and that's what she wanted volunteers for,
which would have been fine but she never told me that. I get in, get hired, and
then suddenly they wanted to change my job [inaudible 00:13:17] about it I'm
like, "Okay, if that's what you want to do," but I get really angry, just proportional
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angry. I basically quit the job. They're [inaudible 00:13:26] swap. [unintelligible
00:13:27].

I quit the job on the spot, the volunteer job and basically stood up for myself,
probably a little bit more angrily that I needed to, but it was because I tended to
err on the side of timid. I think sometimes when you're all one way, you kind of
swing to the other way to get it out. I'm like, "I'm still angry. Why is this?" He's
like, "All right, now you're in [inaudible 00:13:45] denying that you're angry." It
was interesting and it really [inaudible 00:13:49] kind of created but I expected it
to make me happy. It really did what it's supposed to do. It processed my anger
so brought it to the surface.

Interviewer: That's like, "Am I still depressed and feeling worse?" We're
unpacking all this stuff that you were hiding for years.

Christopher: A lot of times I found through inspirational counsel for people and
readings for people it's very easy to mentally do acrobatics to not experience
things, but the flower essences, they get [inaudible 00:14:16] release it if you're
ready. I was ready on some level, I just wasn't intellectually ready.

Interviewer: That's very interesting that dandelion is a liver herb because I've
been, one, curious about use of dandelion in like dandelion in tea and things like
that, and then simultaneously, I actually do have fatty liver disease that I need to
do things with that. That's just something I have to look into now. Thank you.

Christopher: Do with the fatty liver and help me with winds you are carrying a lot
of stuff. [inaudible 00:14:45] levels.

Interviewer: Emotions is connected to all the levels of power. Mental, physical,

spiritual, don't matter, your emotions, they're probably at the root of it
somewhere.

Christopher: Yes, absolutely.

Interviewer: Thank you so much for the interview. I think that's all the questions
I have for you. Is there anything that you [unintelligible 00:15:06]?

Christopher: Just thank you for having me on and tell people to go out and
experience the green world directly and make friends with their plants in their
local area.

Interviewer: Where can people find you if they're interested more in your work
and what you're doing?

Christopher: Sure. My work, you can find me through my website which

[inaudible 00:15:21] my community work it's temple@witchcraft.org and I've got

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Facebook and Twitter and Instagram by person you can find me there too.

Interviewer: Cool and I'll link all those down below in a box, the description box
that people can find [inaudible 00:15:34] for being here with me today
Christopher, this was super fun. I've been looking forward to this even though
we've had to reschedule it [chuckles] a bunch of times because of being sick and
all that jazz but [inaudible 00:15:45].

Christopher: You're quite welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

Interviewer: Yes, well I hope that you have a great rest of your day and I hope
that my bunnies and bats have a great day, stay cute.

Christopher: Take care, [unintelligible 00:15:56] day. Bye-bye.

Interviewer: Bye.

[silence]

[00:15:57] [END OF AUDIO]