Sigils and Servitors

practical experiments in chaos magic

The power of yeast…?

October 20, 2020 — Glyn Faulkner

Princeton’s PEAR laboratory did some fascinating experiments in the 1970s and 80s which appeared to show that baby chickens and even house-plants can exert influence on random number generators in a way that produces more favourable outcomes for them in the world.


One of the PEAR researchers talks about her work in this video.

I recalled this research the other morning while feeding my sourdough starter, and it set me thinking about the sudden spike in the popularity of sourdough that coincided with the onset of a global pandemic; having a few billion micro-organisms influencing random events in your favour because their very survival depends on your continued well-being seems like very good magic to me.

Even if this wasn’t a conscious choice, many of the folks I saw extolling the flavour- and health-benefits of live bread cultures did have a decidedly kitchen-witch-y vibe… Something from race-memory or the collective unconscious, perhaps?

How can this be used to power-up other magical workings, I wonder…

Tags: musings