The Crystals and Beyond Podcast

The Law of Similarity is the oldest idea in magic: things that resemble each other are magically connected. This episode lays it out in plain language — the three ways it works (a thing’s shape or color shows what it’s for, a likeness can stand in for the real thing, and acting a thing out in small helps bring it about), and why that is exactly why spells are so full of color, shape, and image. From the walnut shaped like a brain to the poppet to the paintings on the first cave walls, this is the principle running underneath almost every spell. A conversation about what it means — not a reading of the post. The companion post is here: The Law of Similarity 

The hosts discuss the Law of Sympathy, a foundational principle of magic explaining how a spell can influence someone over a great distance without physical proximity. They illustrates this concept using common folk practices like honey jars, freezer spells, and poppets, alongside the ancient philosophical idea of sympatheia, which views the universe as an interconnected living whole. The podcast has an accompanying blog post:
How Magic Works: The Law of Sympathy — How a Spell Reaches Someone Far Away

The  Crosshollow story  discussion today illustrates how everyday human interactions create profound, unseen ripple effects. The narrative demonstrates emotional contagion as a kindhearted blacksmith named Bryn relieves a young apprentice's anxiety, which subsequently lightens the mood of a weary miller named Garrick. Garrick's cheerful demeanor then passes on to a guarded older man named Fenn, causing him to finally let down his emotional walls and leave his house unlocked. Ultimately, the story highlights the philosophical lesson that actions have distant consequences that we rarely witness, functioning as a metaphor for fundamental magical laws. The blog post story is here: The Far Voice

Want to really understand magic?  Join use:  The discussion  explores the Law of Correspondence,the foundational principle that the universe mirrors itself through shared intrinsic natures across different realms. It explains that unrelated objects, such as the sun, gold, and the human heart, are interconnected as kin because they embody the exact same fundamental qualities. While famous phrases like "as above, so below" capture a portion of this concept, the hosts emphasizes that this web of relationships spans the entire cosmos rather than just linking the heavens to the earth.  

Spell casting blew up online over the last year or so — and it can be   confusing. We discuss: What really happened to the "Etsy witches," where they went, and offer a simple checklist that tells a real spell caster from a scam. Here is our tguide to a messy corner of the internet, so you can find real help without getting played.

A man says good morning to a neighbor in a doorway and is walked past without a word. Over the days that follow he builds a whole grievance on it — certain he's been snubbed, certain there's a reason — until he learns the truth: the other man was a frightened father who'd barely slept in a fortnight, his small daughter gravely ill, walking past everyone and seeing no one. Nothing was ever done to him. He built the whole of it himself. In this episode we use the Crosshollow tale "The Doorway" to explore a striking piece of psychology: we magnify a harm the moment we believe it was intended, and we're quick to read deliberate malice into what was really just someone lost in their own trouble. It's a conversation about how much of what we carry was never handed to us — and the quiet power of asking, before we take offense, what the other person might be carrying too. The podcast has an accompanying blog: The Doorway - A tale from Crosshollow

We're often told that staying open to wonder is a nice idea for people with time on their hands. It turns out to be one of the healthiest things you can do — and there's twenty years of science to prove it. In this episode we dig into the research of UC Berkeley's Dacher Keltner on awe: the feeling of being small before something vast, and what it measurably does to a body. Lower inflammation, lower stress, a calmer nervous system, more generosity, a steadier sense of time, a more satisfying life — and, remarkably, most of us feel it two or three times a week from completely ordinary things, if we slow down enough to notice. We also clear up the big misunderstanding: being open to wonder isn't being naive — knowing the facts of a thing usually makes it more astonishing, not less. A hopeful, grounded conversation about why the people who kept looking for wonder were right all along, and healthier for it.  The podcast has an accompanying blog post: Wonder is Actually Good for You

We spend a great deal of energy arguing about whether the world is enchanted — and almost none simply looking at it. In this episode we bring together two companion letters: one on why wonder is a stance rather than a belief (you cannot find what you have ruled out in advance), and one that stops arguing altogether and just walks through the ordinary astonishments we hurry past — water, a seed, the afternoon light, the people who know us, our own two hands. Underneath both is the plainest and most ignored fact of our situation: we are here a very short while, inside something enormous and strange, with the rare luck of being able to notice it at all. This is a conversation about the magic of being alive — not the kind you have to believe against the evidence, but the kind you only have to slow down enough to see, while there is still time.
The podcast has an accompany two blogs.  Start here:  If You Don't Believe in Magic, You Will Never Find Any