Witchcraft in Trying Times with Judika Illes

Week #44: October 27-November 2, 2025 Week #45: November 3-9, 2025

Witchcraft in Trying Times with Judika Illes

Hello, hello, happy Halloween, witches! Happy Samhain, happy new year.

I am thrilled to bring you this conversation with one of—if not the—leading practitioner in the witchcraft space, Judika Illes, whose brand-new deck the Magic Spells Oracle is out now!

But first, if you are interested in working with the numerology of the day:

SAMHAIN

10/31/2025

1+0+3+1+2+0+2+5 = 14/5

11/01/2025

1+1+1+2+0+2+5 = 12/3

Happy New Year, Witches! These holy days at the end of the month feel super supportive and potent for this wheel spin/new year/transition energy. October 31st is an overall 14/5 day, so you may want to brew a potion, try a new spell that sounds like fun, or do Uncrossing or Road Opening work. November 1, is an overall 12/3 day, so again, we’re making magic, we’re getting creative, we’re expressing ourselves, we’re reflecting on the overall journey… anything that feels like it’ll put you in a good place to lay things to rest, and be reborn.

Whew, know, lofty goals, but at it’s absolutely meeting me where I am this year, and I hope that it is meeting you where you are as well.

If you don’t know where the hell you are today (this season, this year), I hope that this conversation brings you back into your body, back into your practice, back to your meaning, your why for taking an interest in witchcraft, or taking up the practice. Why did you start this adventure? Why did you take on this identity, this mantle, this name for yourself of witch?

And even if you don’t claim it, I think this conversation is just so chock full of really good lessons from a long life. Judika shares so generously from her long publishing career, and I also posed to her questions like, What can we do in these trying times? And she had very grounded, very simple, very accessible and empowering answers.

So I know you’re gonna love it.

Judika Illes is a lifelong student, lover, and practitioner of the magical arts. She is the author of numerous books devoted to spells, spirits, and witchcraft, including the bestselling Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells and Encyclopedia of Spirits, as well as Pure Magic, Daily Magic, Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, Encyclopedia of Mystics, Saints, and Sages, Witches: A Compendium, and Magic When You Need It. She was a contributor to Taschan’s Witchcraft, the third volume in the Library of Esoterica series. Judika is the editor and curator of two books of mystical fiction, The Weiser Book of the Fantastic Forgotten and The Weiser Book of Occult Detectives. She has been a professional tarot card reader for over three decades and is also a certified aromatherapist. A native New Yorker, Judika teaches in the United States and internationally, both live and virtually.