Witchcraft

My Contribution to the OcculTea Discussion – Topic 1: Impact on Community

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Yvonne Aburrow over at Dowsing for Divinity made me aware of the OcculTea community discussion regarding witchcraft online, and I naturally decided I had to throw my own pointy hat into the ring. (Who knows, maybe this will be the impetus I need to really get back into blogging or even doing YouTube videos. We’ll see.) As an aside, I’d highly encourage you to check out Yvonne’s own post on this first topic, as they always have interesting things to say.

The first topic and the focus of my blog post is titled “Impact on Community.” The organizers have provided a handy series of prompt questions, which I will spend the rest of this post exploring.

What is my personal reasoning/inspiration behind sharing my practice online? What am I looking to achieve by participating? Do I seek to educate, learn or connect?

I think that my reasons for sharing my practice online include all of those things and possibly more. I want to share information and insights. I want to explore ideas with other people and see what we can come up with together. One of us may have a thought, which might inspire a thought for someone else, and when we share these thoughts, I think that everyone is enriched through the experience.

Even in cases where we may not see eye to eye on certain things, I think that understanding our respective views can help us understand one another and even our own views a bit better.

How do I believe social media, as a whole, has impacted the community?

One positive thing I think it has done is given many of us the ability to connect with like minded people that we may have been isolated from before. Prior to social media and the Internet in general, people were limited to interacting with whatever other witches they could find locally — and some of us lived in places where that was not a large group of people. We often relied on going to large gatherings and conferences — assuming we could afford — to have a few days a few times a year where we didn’t feel quite so alone.

And not to start up the “coven vs. solitary practice” argument again (which I think its a false dichotomy anyway), I think it provided ways for many of us to connect and socialize with one another that didn’t automatically mean we were seeking to worship or work magic together. (Though plenty of people do both of those things online too!)

How do I think social platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube have each impacted education/sharing information?

I think such platforms have provided a way to share information and learn things from sources other than books. Not that I have anything against books. But they are not the only way to learn things. And to be honest, I got tired of picking up books that for 80% of the book said the same things the last five books I read said. Paying full price for 20% (at most) new thought and information didn’t seem smart.

I also think videos by nature of their format can be more focused than most books. It can cover a single idea (well, at least the basics) in less than five minutes. To me, that’s getting the 20% of the new information without the repeat information. I like that a lot.

I also think such platforms allow more people to get their ideas out there. It takes a lot of work and skill to write a book and get it published. Anyone can put up a video on YouTube and TikTok. I mean, how hard can it be? I’ve done it. And it’s not just the people who are skilled writers and have 240 pages worth of knowledge to share that have things worth hearing about.

Is consuming witchcraft content becoming a substitute for practice?

Honestly? I think that’s been a problem for a while. I think we as a society have conflated knowing about something with being able to do a thing. I remember someone on the old Yahoo Group Amber And Jet (a group specifically for discussing British Traditional Wicca) talking about the difference between teaching (which typically involves imparting facts) and training (which typically involves walking someone through actually doing something) and how many Seekers need to understand that difference.

So while I think treating the consumption of witchcraft content as a substitute for practice is a concern, I don’t think it’s one that can ultimately be blamed on social media or witchcraft content in general. I think the better question would be what can we online witches do to encourage people to actually start a practice or continue with their current one. I’ll leave that for everyone to discuss in the comments if they’d like.

Gender and Sexuality, Religion, Sexuality

Thoughts about the first Content Warning Event

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Image from the event’s website.

This past weekend, I attended the 2024 Content Warning Event online. This was an event hosted and sponsored by the Thereafter and Go Home Bible You’re Drunk podcasts to discuss purity culture, the various ways it has harmed people, and ways to move beyond it. It was an excellent conference, consisting entirely of panel discussions and the panelists represented a diverse range of sexualities and racial backgrounds.

I loved the fact that the event consisted solely of panel discussions rather than including lectures or presentations given by solo speakers. It made it clear that the goal was dialogue rather than a one-way communication of ideas. Given who authoritarian purity culture and the larger Christian cultures that promote it tend to be, I thought that in itself was a nice act of resistance.

I also appreciated the diversity of topics and perspectives that the event tried to cover. This was not merely a conference about how purity culture demeans sex (which is a true statement) and creates guilt, but one that explored the white supremacy inherent in purity culture, the damage purity culture does to the way people understand their own gender, and how purity culture harms relationship — including non-romantic relationships. One of my favorite moments was when Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers gave her introduction during the first panel discussion and brought up how purity culture harms relationships between parents and children.

Some panel discussions interested me more than others. For example, I was not particularly engaged with the panel discussion about queer inclusion, since that focused primarily on queer inclusion within Christianity and I’m not interested in being included in Christianity. In fact, I appreciated Chrissy Stroop, who facilitated that particular panel discussion, for noting that she was happy to just avoid theology altogether. Chrissy and I differ in that I still enjoy theology, but we both have little use for Christian theology.

(I want to quickly note, that the above is a personal opinion. I understand that many queer folks are Christian and remain to be so. I’m sure they appreciated that particular panel discussion far more than I did. And not everything needs to be nor should be about me.)

While I’m talking about my own religious views, I will note that one thing I would love to see see more diversity of religious thought in the future. The panelists seemed to be mostly Christian, Christian adjacent, or non-religious. And while that probably reflects the demographics of most people who have escaped purity culture pretty well, a bit more representation of those of us who “are still religious, but not Christian anymore” would be nice. Plus I think that exploring the ways that other religions view sex and sexuality would be beneficial for everyone. For example, my own spiritual tradition has a lot to say about sex as sacred and even a religious rite.

Some of my favorite panels were the ones that looked beyond purity culture and talked about building new ways to see sexuality and even think about the morality of sex. These panels included discussions of sex work and porn consumption, non-monogamous relationships and sex, and decolonizing purity culture. I’d love to see more such panels in the future. I think “where do we go from here” is an important question to ask and there are plenty of ways to explore it.

I also appreciated that some panel discussions– most notably the one on decolonization — spoke to issues and ideas beyond purity culture. I think this is important because purity culture doesn’t exist in a vacuum, but is part of a much bigger system. I suspect that the whole system must be tackled and keeping that in mind even when discussing a particular sub-component or constituent part is important.

At the end of the event, they announced that the next event will be held next year over President’s Day weekend in Atlanta Georgia. It’s not clear to me if that one will also be focused on purity culture or if they might cover a (slightly) different topic. Either way, I look forward to it and hope it’s as delightful, uplifting, and educational as this one was.

Religion, Religious Discrimination, Sexuality

Let’s talk about that Christian radio host who lost his job for telling a woman to attend her grandson’s wedding to another man.

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The following is collected from a series of posts I made on Threads.

I finally decided to read about the Christian radio host who got fired because he talked about telling a woman she should attend her grandson’s wedding to another man. Can we talk about how phenomenally bad he man’s advice was? Before you get too riled up by that assertion, read on.

Yes, the man told the woman she should attend the ceremony. On the face of things, that seems like a good thing. But he only told her to do so after she affirmed that she did not approve and she thought her grandson’s “lifestyle” was sinful. Folks, if that’s your attitude, I don’t WANT you at my wedding. Attending a same sex marriage ceremony only after making it clear you think it’s a terrible thing is NOT loving.

And then you have the man’s reasons for giving the advice. He argues that the grandson is far less likely to “write his grandmother off as judgemental.” Not because she loves her grandson and wants to be there for any major moment in his life. No, simply because not doing so might “hurt her witness,” because that’s apparently the most important thing in this situation.

And to be frank, if you’ve already told me you think my relationship is sinful and wrong in the eyes of your god, I’ve already concluded you’re judgemental and bigoted. Showing up at my wedding after that isn’t going to change my mind. So the radio host’s advice and reasoning for that advice aren’t even liable to pan out.

Finally, what’s really going on here is that the host is banking on the grandson giving in to the societal pressure that “family is important no matter what.” He’s hoping the grandson will bend over backward to see his grandmother in the best possible light. And that’s manipulative.

Personal Development, Religion

Musings Leaving Christianity and Still Relating to Christians: Inspired by Trey Ferguson’s book.

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The following is a compilation of a Thread I posted. The book I mention can be found here.

So I had a few thoughts while reading Chapter 7 (“We Gotta Have a Talk about Deconstruction”) from @pastortrey05‘s book. It’s the chapter I got this quote from:

“Liberation lies in the community of testimonies. It is not in shouting down the stories of others that we become more whole. It is in putting those stories in conversation. Not debate. Actual conversations for the sake of learning about our neighbors, not convincing nor converting them.”

@pastortrey05, “Theologizin’ Bigger”

Note that this thread is not a direct response @pastortrey05 or specifically what he said. Instead, they are my own thoughts that came up while reading. But I felt that sharing those seemed very in line with the above quote and the book in general, so here we go.

I’m one of the people whose deconstruction (which started before most of us even knew that such a process would become commonly called “deconstruction”) led them out of Christianity completely. And I have to admit, i sometimes wonder why I spend so many books about theology in a religion I don’t follow anymore. But hey, some Christians have some interesting theologies (or theologizin’, if you prefer) that deserve a good look.

So here’s a glimpse into my perspective(s) on my exit from Christianity and my thoughts on the various Christianities out there as someone who has since become a total “outsider.”

I will note that the Christianity I left was specifically white evangelical Christianity. I was raised in an American Baptist (the denomination the SBC split off from) church. I’ll note that my congregation was still pretty conservative for that denomination. So theologically, we were still pretty close to the Southern Baptists.

In college, I got involved in a Full Gospel (basically charismatic or Pentecostal) church. So my journey from being a low-key cessationist to a tongues-speaking spiritual warrior type who did Jericho walks and prayed against literal demons would probably make an interesting thread in its own right. But for now, I just wanted to note that I had some exposure to a small diversity of Christian teachings even within white evangelicalism.

But I definitely stayed within white evangelicalism. Even when I first came out as gay, I spent a couple years trying to remain within my evangelical faith. Basically, I tried to keep everything else while saying it was okay if I dated and had sex with other men. I think a lot of LGBTQIA+ Christians from that background try that route for at least a while, to be honest. Some even seem to stick with it.

(See my criticisms of organizations like The Reformation Project that, in my opinion, merely seek to “the queer wing of the purity culture movement.”)In the long run, I couldn’t do it. In the long run, I realized that the Christianity I was raised in did not allow myself to see myself in a positive light. I decided then that if I wanted to be able to see myself as anything other than slime that relied on the grace of another to “love me in spite of myself,” I had to leave.

I will note that I didn’t know Christians like @josh_a_scott, @pastortrey05, @thequirkypastor back then. Had I known such Christians back then, I might have had access to Christianities that recognized the inherent dignity and worth (what I call the sacredness) of every human being just because each human being existed. I sometimes wonder how my story might differ if I had.

(I’ve similarly wondered how my story might have been different if I’d been surrounded by Jewish friends and acquaintances at that time of my life rather than atheists and Pagans. There’s much about Judaism I find admirable these days as well.)

But instead, I found myself among Wiccans and other Pagans, and that led me to my new and current spiritual home. It led to me to one of my favorite sayings:Jesus loved me. Freyja taught me to love myself.

That statement is central to my story. It’s also the central reason why I will probably be a witch and devotee of Freyja for the rest of my life. You just don’t walk away from that kind of gift. But even so, I can appreciate the stories (and yes, I’m falling into much the same language of @pastortrey05 here) of others who might have found a home in some new (to that person) Christianity.

I find a great deal to admire about how the Christians I mentioned up-thread interpret and share the stories of Jesus and other stories int he Bible. They’re just not MY stories anymore. But I appreciate that I share many values with these Christians even if we might express them through radically different stories.

In closing, I note that I think one of the things I find funny is that the biggest thing I and the Christians I mentioned might disagree with on is actually the nature of the Divine (for example, monotheism and a “Three O compliant” deity just don’t make sense to me anymore). But rather than spending a lot of time arguing over that, we can find shared values and common cause. And that’s something I love.

Magic/Magick, Religion, Spiritual Development

Musings on worship from a magical/ritual point of view.

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A topic that I’ve seen come up in many circles (most recently in a recent Meet and Greet for those of us who attend Gracepointe church services online) is the topic of worship. And a common question seems to be one over whether there is an actual Divine experience there or whether it’s a purely emotional experience. As a witch who has come to greatly appreciate religious and magical ritual alike, I suspect that worship involves — or at least can involve both of those things.

One of the things that I have learned as a witch is the importance of a ritual state of consciousness (and other altered states of consciousness). I’ve also come to understand that well-crafted rituals are designed to create various states of consciousness in the participants. And that includes evoking certain emotions.

I also don’t think that this is a bad thing. Evoking certain emotions and states of consciousness can be very useful and beneficial. (I’ll come back to that in a bit.) It’s okay that the worship music (or other aspects of some other ritual) are carefully selected to have a particular impact on participants, as long as participants are aware of what’s happening and they consent to it.

And I think it’s that if that creates the problem. I think a lot of people go into worship not understanding that they’re essentially participating in an activity that is designed to evoke these things. Instead, they’ve often be encouraged to think of them as something that “just happens” or that it’s a sure sign that their experience is “from God.” In my opinion, that’s dishonest and discourages those people from going into that experience and viewing it afterward through critical analysis and thought. But for those aware that they’re participating in an intentionally constructed experience, I think it can be both beneficial and illuminating.

This doesn’t mean I don’t think there’s no experience of the Divine in such experiences. As a matter of fact, as a witch who is heavily interested in theurgy (loosely defined as magic related to connecting/uniting with the divine1), I think that we go through these rituals that evoke these emotions and states of consciousness to aid and encourage an experience of the Divine. In that moment of emotionalism or ecstasy, we may gain a new insight which may cause us to see things in a new light. Hopefully it causes us to gain a renewed or deepened sense of compassion, a heightened desire to be a champion for justice, or some other positive outcome.2

To me, the important thing is to understand the difference between the intentionally generated emotions and the experience of the Divine (or other spiritual insight) that comes from it. I think far too many people have been encouraged to mistake the former for the latter and even completely ignore the latter altogether. Such people tend to think that the emotional trip is the end goal rather than a means to seek out something deeper. On the flip side, some people who realize that worship (and similar ritual activities) intentionally invokes emotions and respond by throwing the whole practice out altogether. I don’t think that’s necessary to do, though.

1I’m not entirely satisfied with this brief definition of theurgy because I believe we are always united with the Divine. Instead, I think we’re just often unawareness of that fact. So maybe theurgy would better be described as magical acts that raise our awareness of our connection to/union with the Divine.

2I am firmly convinced that the measure of any mystical experience should not be how “real” it is, but what effect it has on you and whether it makes you more inclined to want to make the world a better place.

Online Life, Religion

Musings on sharing and passing on prayer requests on social media.

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This blog post is adapted from a Twitter1 thread that I tweeted out on the same topic.

Yesterday, I learned that my mother is in the hospital for COVID. I tweeted the following out to my followers, looking for support:

I would like to note that I specifically directed this message to “friends who…” I would have thought that this would have made it clear that I wasn’t looking for every person who believed in prayer to jump on it.

And yet, three different people who do not follow me and have no followers in common with me decided to retweet my request to their followers. I’m not even sure how any of them found my tweet, to be honest. As I said, I don’t follow me, and I doubt my tweets get promoted, sine I refuse to send Musk any money.

I get it. it’s entirely possible that these people meant well. After all, I think there’s an impulse to get as many people praying as possible. And I think that usually comes from a good place. But as the song goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. More on that later.

But I think we as a society also need to balance that impulse against respecting people’s privacy and whether or not they want every prayer they can possibly get. There are probably some people I don’t want praying for my or my mother. Namely people who are going to pray for an outcome I don’t approve of. (My mother’s health crisis is neither your evangelistic opportunity nor a chance to pray for my “salvation.”)

I will note that all three people who retweeted my request are Christians. Not the same kind of Christian, mind you. One seemed like a pretty progressive type. Another was an obvious Christian supremacist. I’d be hard pressed to describe the third one with such certainty, but their bio and tweet history suggested that they were at least inclined toward some degree of Christian supremacy.

Now, I will note that a lot of people I don’t know — including Christians who probably found my prayer request through the overt Christian supremacist — left kind offers of prayer. I appreciated that. But then you have good ol’ Tom, who totally found me through that overt Christian supremacist. Here’s what Tom had to say:2

I would be happy to pray for you, Jarred, AFTER you remove “send positive energy” from your request. If I pray Only God will get the glory.

Because leave it to a Christian supremacist to turn a chance to pray for a sick woman into a religious pissing match.

Now I’d like to think that most people — including multitudes of people who fall somewhere in Christian supremacy — would be horrified by Tom’s behavior. And many of my friends took Tom to task for his behavior. (Much love to you.)

But the Christian supremacist who enabled Tom to find me through his retweet? As of late last night when I checked, he hasn’t said a peep. He hasn’t taken Tom to task. Nor has he expressed any regret for — whether intentionally or not — put me in Tom’s rhetorical crosshairs. For me that’s a problem.

So consider this post a reminder that maybe not every tweet should be retweeted and that maybe we should take more care in considering what the consequences of retweeting something deeply personal and sensitive to other people might be. Even if our hearts are in the right place and just want to make sure that a sick woman and her son get as much prayer as possible. Because remember, I was somewhat specific in who I was directing my prayer request to.

1I will never call it “X.” However, if someone pays me $20 per month, I’ll gladly start referring to it as “Close App Icon.”

2I will not link directly to Tom’s profile or tweet because Tom does not deserve the traffic. Also, I’d just as soon he not find this post through Google search if he’s the type to search his name. (In fairness, I search my name about every six months and don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with the practice.

Movies, Witchcraft

Witchcraft Movie Corner: The School for Good and Evil

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Looking for witchcraft-themed movies that were actually released in the past couple of years,1 I ran across “The School for Good and Evil,” which was released in 2022. So I decided to give it a watch and I have a lot of thoughts about it.

I should warn the readers that this post will be chock full of spoilers. So if you haven’t seen it yet and you dislike spoilers, you might want to run over to Netflix and come back to this post after you’ve watched it.

I also want to take a moment to acknowledge and point out the antisemitism in the movie. Toward then end, when the character Sophie begins to embrace her role as an evil witch, she begins to turn ugly. Both unsurprisingly and unfortunately, the movie-makers decided to portray her transformation as her becoming ugly in the stereotypical manner. And the stereotype of the ugly witch is firmly rooted in antisemitic caricatures of Jews. Similarly, as another reviewer pointed out, both Sophie and Rafal are shown as being the most evil because of their use of blood magic, which is another antisemitic trope often used. (For those not familiar, it’s rooted in blood libel against Jews. While some might be willing to overlook these things — as the movie is drawing primarily from fairy tales and these antisemitic tropes are pretty baked into those tales — I still find it disappointing. It would have been entirely possible to demonstrate Sophie becoming “ugly” without drawing on such stereotypes. And the use of blood magic played no major role in the movie and could have been written out altogether.

At the very least the movie could have interrogated those stereotypes. After all, it challenged many of the other fairy tale ideas, such as when Rafael points out that some of the fairy tale villains are sent to truly cruel fates and proudly declares them a “corruption of the good in the stories.” So before I move on with the many wonderful thoughts and themes I saw (or at least read into) the movie, I wanted to acknowledge these problems and sit with the discomfort that those in charge could and should have done better.

There’s not a lot to say about this movie’s portrayal of witches and witchcraft. There is no sense of witchcraft as a modern day witch like myself sees it in the movie. Instead, this is about fairy tale witches, who are almost always portrayed as evil. And that is how they are treated in this movie. Witches are common villain in the stories the students will participate in and therefore must either be trained to stop them or trained to be one of them.

At this point, a reader might rightfully wonder why I’m covering this movie at all then. I’d say that the main reasons are two-fold:

  1. I think fairy tales and story telling in general are important to witchcraft, or at least the witchcraft I practice.
  2. I have a lot of opinions on good, evil, and the whole idea of “good vs. evil.” As a lot of my opinions are bound up in my witchcraft practice and this movie explores those themes a lot, I feel it’s a good choice to use the movie to explore those topics.

I think it’s important to understand that historically, fairy tales and similar stories are meant to express and communicate values.2 They are used to communicate what is good, why it is good, and why it is important to embrace good. Many of these tales, as suggested in the movie, tend to express these ideas in the form of an outright battle between good and evil.

The problem with these stories is that it seems like many in today’s society try to see our world as a battle between good and evil. They want to draw lines and declare people good or evil. Unfortunately, the real world is often much messier than that.

Perhaps I read this into the movie (we tend to do that as humans), but it seemed to me that the movie was exploring that reality by moving the complexities and nuances of reality into the realm of fairy tales itself. This was most aptly displayed when Agatha is challenged with the accusation that she doesn’t actually believe Sophie is good after all by responding that it’s true, but only because she doesn’t believe that anyone is totally good or totally evil. It shows this in more subtle ways by taking a critical look at the “School for Good” in particular and in how it handles things like expelling students who fail out.3

Of course, this gets explicitly shown when Sophie manages to get the Good students to attack the Evil students unprovoked, suddenly reversing the roles of everyone. Suddenly, the Evil students all become beautiful and lovely while the Good students become ugly. And of course, the Evil (now “Good”) students turn around and defend themselves — though I will note that they do so without any sense of proportionality. As a viewer, it just seemed like everyone (except Aggie) in that scene had proven themselves to be terribly immoral.

I felt the movie could have done a bit better defining “good” and evil.” They gave a few hints when they suggested that the most powerful emotion for magic on the Good side was empathy. Also the rule that good always defends, but never attacks first was pretty good. And of course, you had the original fight against Rafal and his brother at the beginning when Rafal says that Evil will never cooperate or share. Rafal never really explains the difference between “fairy tale evil” and “real evil,” though he notes that it’s the latter he wants to usher in. I might speculate that fairy tale evil seems to be more about selfishness and pettiness whereas “real evil” seems to be about utter destruction and annihilation, but that’s based on very little actual exposition or explanation.

One of the things I will note is the commentary the movie makes on the desire for power. Many of the characters seem to desire it, including the good ones. It seems to be mostly Aggie who has no interest in it. In fact, she seems to almost entirely motivated by her twin desires to return home to her mother and help/protect Sophie.

I also liked that it at least questioned — though not always well — some common tropes, like the linking of beauty to good and ugliness to evil with the beautiful carnivorous flowers. Of course, this makes the fact that they fall into the “evil witch as an ugly hag” trope toward the end all the more disappointing.

Of course the movie still fails to answer questions I always have about the idea of balancing good an evil. What is the purpose of such a balance? What does such a balance really look like? I personally think the idea of evil and good in balance is in itself a trope that needs to be challenged and would have liked to see the movie go that far. But overall, I think it did a pretty good job of exploring some of the moral questions about good vs. evil in an entertaining and thoughtful manner.

1Seriously. I loved both The Craft and Practical Magic. But I’d like to cover some movies that aren’t more than twenty years old in this blog series.

2In some ways, I think they do a better job at this than many myths, and think that many of us who are looking to find connections would be well served by exploring these old tales at least as much as the myths we have, if not more.

3It’s not clear whether the School for Evil handles its expelled students in the same way, though I feel there’s a strong hint that it does. But then, such cruelty would be expected of a school that promotes evil, yes?

Magic/Magick, Movies, Witchcraft

Witchcraft Movie Corner: Practical Magic

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When I asked people if there were any particular movies that they wanted me to cover in the Witchcraft Movie Corner, Twitter user the life shantastic suggested I cover the 1998 movie Practical Magic. As someone who both loves that movie and is an eternal Sandra Bullock fan, how could I say no? Plus, it seems like it would be rude for me to refuse the suggestion from the only person who has recommended a movie as of the time I’m writing this post. So late Monday afternoon, I checked to see if any of the streaming services were offering it and fired up a browser to head over to Hulu.

One of the things that I love about this movie is that not only does it portray witches in a positive light (I’d be hard pressed to think of an earlier movie that did so), but did not focus on witchcraft as a way to get power. Neither Sally, Gillian, nor their aunts seem to be obsessed with power. So while the movie falls into other tropes — or at least comes close to doing so in some cases — it avoids being a cautionary tale about seeking power. (As an example of a trope ti does play into, the movie seems to play into the trope that witchcraft is a “gift” that is somehow inherited rather than simply something one can learn through practice.)

I also like some of the subtle ways in which the movie portrays Sally and her family using witchcraft. For example, Sally seems to stir her drink multiple times throughout the movie using telekinesis. And while I personally have serious doubt about whether telekinesis is real, I appreciate that the movie portrayed such non-showy examples of supernatural magic. It was not a movie of pure spectacle, in my opinion.

Speaking of subtle bits of supernatural magic, I particularly love the scenes where Sally would ignite a candle while blowing on its wick. While this was once again a more subtle and non-showy example of supernatural magic, I also found it interesting in light of one of the things I learned about candles.

For those not aware of it, according to some witchcraft traditions, one should not blow a candle used in magic (or other ritual) out. Instead, such traditions recommend snuffing candles out. While a number of reasons might be given for this, I was taught that for at least some traditions, this is rooted in Kabbalistic thought that says that breath is the source of life. According to these traditions, the thought of using the breath/source of life to extinguish a flame is unthinkable. I don’t know if it was intentional, but these scenes in the movie suggested a tribute to that line of thinking, having their witch use the breath/source of life to ignite the flame instead.

I similarly liked the way the brooms were used, not only to sweep Jimmy’s spirit out of the house at the end, but when it falls over indicating a visitor (and one that was unwanted) is about to arrive. This struck me as a nod to the use of brooms to guard against negative energy and even negative beings. Having the broom topple seemed to me that it was overwhelmed by the negativity.

Another theme I found interesting is other people’s reactions to witchcraft. I love that early in the movie, one of the aunts tells Sally and Gillian, “People don’t hate us. We just make them nervous.” This is something I’ve talked about before, how even in pre-Christian times, there’s evidence that witches weren’t always trusted. And why wouldn’t we be? And yet, the movie also points out the flip side of that reality: People may not trust witches, but they still may want the help of witches on occasion. This is best displayed by the woman on the island who comes to the aunts for a love spell.

This nuance continued on later when Gary starts interviewing the other people in town. Some of the rumors he here’s about the Owens women are wild and even border on slanderous. And yet, other people have sympathetic and even downright kind things to say about them. So the complexity and nuance in which the opinion of this family of witches was viewed was a nice change of pace from outright vilification or utter idolization.

Let me turn now to “the curse” and young Sally’s true love spell. I found the idea of a self-imposed curse upon the family a rather interesting one. First, it escapes the trope of witches cursing others.1 It should also be noted that the aunts seem to suggest that the curse wasn’t really meant to be a curse, but turned into one. This is the first introduction of the idea that magic can go in ways the person who set it in motion did not intend, which is another theme that gets touched upon throughout the movie. Including with young Sally’s love spell.

I will note that I always found Sally’s love spell odd. Perhaps it would make sense to a young girl, but her logic of avoiding love by making a spell to call up someone who “couldn’t possibly exist” just seems weak. The movie even makes this point by having the spell fail twice: First when Sally falls in love with Michael despite him not being her “true love” from the spell and then when the spell manages to summon the “impossible man” in Gary.

Speaking of Michael, the aunt’s foolishness in casting that love spell is one of the few instances where I question their wisdom. When they confess what they had done to Sally, one of them says, “We never expected you would truly love him.” I just don’t get how two allegedly wise women with serious witchcraft experience would never consider that this is a real possible outcome when you “push someone” to open themselves up to the possibility of a relationship. Sloppy thinking, ladies!

Where I do appreciate the aunts’ wisdom is when they leave for a while so that Sally and Gillian can learn a hard yet much needed lesson. And yet, before they go, they take care to protect Sally’s children. To me, that’s a realization that Sally’s and Gillian’s choices could have consequences for others and the aunts acknowledge their responsibility to prevent or at least mitigate that.

Beyond that, there are just a number of quotes that I loved in the movie. I may not produce them verbatim (so beware repeating them lest I end up starting some sort of Practical Magic Mandela effect), but these are all capture their essence:

  • “Being normal is not a virtue. In fact, it shows a lack of courage.”
  • “So you’re drugging you’re boyfriend to get a little shut-eye?” Gillian definitely should have payed attention to the red flag there.
  • “You’d think after three hundred years, they’d come up with a better rhyme!” Sally’s commentary on the accusations of the people outside her shop was so spot on.
  • “Fine, but I don’t want them dancing naked under the full moon.” I just love that they worked a mention of ritual nudity into the movie without making it a huge deal. And the aunt pointing out that the nudity is entirely optional was a perfect response.
  • “Since when was being a slut a bad thing in this family?”
  • “Magic isn’t just spells and potions.” I really want this one on a tee shirt.
  • “You can’t practice witchcraft while you look down your nose at it.” I feel like this is another one worthy of a tee shirt.

If there’s a witchcraft or other occult-themed movie you’d like me to watch and comment on, mention it in a comment. Or use the contact page to send me an email about it.

1Okay, technically, the curse seems to be on the men who fall in love with the women in the family However, it’s a curse that clearly hurts those women as well. So I’d still argue it’s technically a curse imposed upon the witches themselves.

Movies, Witchcraft

Witchcraft Movie Corner: The Craft and The Craft: Legacy

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As it’s Halloween time, Joe and I have been watching horror and occult themed movies. This past week, we re-watched both the 1996 movie “The Craft” and the 2020 sequel, “The Craft: Legacy.” I enjoy watching both of these movies, I find them rather entertaining. I also find myself having a lot of thoughts about both movies as a witch. This post will be my scattershot attempt to share at least some of those thoughts.

I won’t spend a lot of time talking about what details they got “wrong” or “right.” Sure, it annoys me that the refer to “calling the corners” in both movies rather than “calling the quarters.” But I think other people have discussed these most basic details they got wrong well enough.

There is some room to talk about how both movies seem to treat witchcraft as a monolith, making such claims as “you’re supposed to start in the east.” In reality, this depends on the witchcraft tradition. And some witchcraft traditions don’t even all the quarters. I think the important lesson here is that one shouldn’t turn to these movies or any other movie as an authority on what witchcraft is or how one should practice it. But this is not unique. I would not recommend turning to any movie as an authority on how to be a Christian or Buddhist either.

Personally, I think one of the most noteworthy thing about these movies is how they each portray the relationships between the four witches in each movie. In the original movie, the four young women turn adversarial and even hostile toward one another. I think this is partly because the first movie is your standard fare of “power corrupts and leads to bad things,” which even in 1996 seemed like a theme that had been overdone in horror/witchcraft movies.

And while we’re talking about that, can we just talk about all four witches in that movie seem pretty petty at times. Even Robin Tunney’s character seems pretty spiteful at times. The way she talks to Fairuza Balk’s character leading up to final fight seems pretty harsh to my ears. And then there is the final scene where she causes lightning to strike a tree branch, sending it nearly crashing down upon the two (now former) witches played by Neve Campbell and Rachel True. For what purpose? Just to prove to them that she still has “the power?” To give them a scare and a threat? In my experience, the truly great witches don’t feel a need to do that sort of thing. It’s disappointing that even the “good” witch seems to be a bit obsessed with “power.”

The sequel by contrast shows witches who are true companions that care deeply about one another. Even when the three witches are concerned that their friend is out of control and needs to be bound, they have the humility and self-reflection to see that they themselves have not been perfect. It also seems appropriate that they eventually reconcile and unite to defeat David Duchovny’s character in the end. Granted, the way Cailee Spany’s character tells him “it’s your turn to burn” feels a bit spiteful, but at least I can understand why she feels that way.

Another interesting difference between the two is that the first movie feels like “the Sarah show” in many ways. She is the witch that completes the coven. But she’s also the one who seems to have “real” power. She’s the one that teaches the other how to do glamours. And the movie seems to at least imply multiple times that the others have no power without her.

The sequel doesn’t seem to fall into this notion — at least not as badly. Yes, Lilly completes the coven and it’s not until she arrives that the other four witches really find their “power.” But it feels more like it still takes all four of them working together to accomplish many of their feats. Lilly doesn’t seem to be so much the leader or the teacher. The others are more integral to their efforts and the story rather than just being along for the ride.

Granted, Lilly is still clearly the main character. After all, much of the plot focuses on her discovery of witchcraft and conflict with Adam and the revelation of who her mother is at the end. But it still feels to me like the other three are important, even if they deserved a bit more character development and personal story arc.

There are just a few of my thoughts about this movie. In closing, I’d like to pose the one unresolved question I have about the movie (which has nothing to do with witchcraft).

What happened to Isaiah, Jacob, and Abe after their father disappeared (was killed)?

Paganism, Religion

Pagan Ponderings: Old Gods, New Pantheons

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Earlier today, I answered a question over on Quora which asked whether Pagans believed in more than one pantheon. I would like to duplicate part of that answer here.

The other thing that I will note is that in my opinion, “pantheons” are mostly a cultural construct. They’re the result of a bunch of cults to different gods existing in close proximity and their various members intermingling. In this sense the “Greek pantheon” is simply a collection of the various deities that the various people living in Greece (or more properly, the Greek city-states) worshiped. Eventually, people started trying to figure out how these various deities related to each other, and the myths explaining those relationships emerged.

I think that as the modern Pagan movement gains traction and maturity, we might see new pantheons emerge. That is, rather than merely talking about what culture a given deity originated, we will start inventing new stories to explain their relationships to the various other deities they find themselves co-existing with today.

I found this idea both fascinating and appealing. As I mentioned in my answer, I believe that pantheons are the result of different cults/religious groups that worship different deities living in proximity of one another. So why do we still think about ancient pantheons rather than the pantheons that might be forming in our own communities by virtues of which deities we each worship while living together?

And what about the more eclectic Pagans among us who tend to worship different deities who stem from different cultures? Does it not make sense to think of this disparate group as forming a sort of pantheon today? Perhaps even new myths about how Aphrodite and The Morrigan relate to one another and share a follower in common. In many ways,

I imagine the more strict reconstructionists are practically howling in rage at this idea. But some of us are much more innovative and are not as interested in maintaining some weird (and often illusory) sense of historicity. instead, we cherish the (again, sometimes illusory) historical roots, but take them in new directions. And this is okay.

For those of us who are so innovative, I think developing new pantheons and even myths explaining the wide variety of deities is a rational and natural development of our pagan traditions as they grow and mature. Such a thing might even be necessary for that growth and maturity. After all, it might help add some level of cohesion to the often scattered and disparate gods whose names get bandied about in an almost random-seeming manner.

The thoughts of a gay witch living in upstate New York.