Adventures in Madgic

Queer (Dis)Spelling, Crip Witchery, & Madgic

[adventuresinmadgic]

Dis/Appearing Dis/Ableism: Dis/Illusionism and Cure

   I will never be fixed, cured;      I am not broken.      You lower the curtain,      But I refuse to dis/appear.

Show magic and illusionism makes visible the conflation between disability and the necessity of cure (Dearborn, 2008). Sawing a person in half, filling their body with knives, draws upon human anxieties of be(com)ing disabled. Restoring this body, making it once again “whole,” alleviates these anxieties. We are given reassurance that disability can be easily reversed, cured, fixed. At the same time, disability and disablement are presented as a tragedy, a process that makes us “less than,” and a state to seek recovery from.

Drawing upon the work of Kafer (2013), Morrigan (2017) refers to the concept of curative time – the obligatory orienting of disability toward a cure. Disabled people exist within curative time because of the pervasiveness of the medical model of disability, which understands disability as a form of bio/medical defect, from which people can be cured through medical intervention.

People are drawn to cure for many reasons; treatments can help us minimize symptoms, pain, and the impact of dis/ableism and (in)accessibility in our lives. In fact, the very idea of cure can provide hope for the future (personal communication, 2019). Clare (2014) describes how the idea of restoration can be a powerful idea when dealing with loss.

However, the issue of curative time is how it conceptualizes dis/ability. Disability is understood as a temporary state, which exists only until the right “cure” can be purchased, found, or developed. In other words, disability is only understood in relation to a cure. This forces us to live in anticipation of the future, placing our lives on hold. By viewing disability as a state of deficiency, the potential strengths of our lived experiences and corporeal realities are made invisible; like the magician’s assistant, they are made to disappear.

Magic helps us grapple with the ontological (ways of being) and epistemological (ways of knowing) questions of living (Bailey, 2006), allowing for meaning-making and providing possibility for creating change. In my opinion, magic does not seek to change ourselves but rather the world around us. Magic does not allow for cure, but rather survival.

What if the sawing through, or stabbing of flesh is not metaphor for disability, but rather disablement? According to the social model of disability, we are not disabled by internal and innate difference, but rather through environments that are not built with people like us in mind. What if the cure we are looking for is the cure for discrimination, disablement, dis/ableism, (in)accessibility, and oppression? Which spells can we use to reverse the process of disablement – the flight of stairs, the glaring fluorescent lights, the people who look/move away when we stim, shout, or talk to people they can't see? What would it take to make dis/ableism visible – and then make it disappear?

References

Bailey, M. D. (2006). The disenchantment of magic: Spells, charms, and superstition in early European witchcraft literature. The American Historical Review, 111(2), 383-404.

Clare, E. (2014). Meditations on natural worlds, disabled bodies, and a politics of cure. Material ecocriticism, 204-218.

Dearborn, K. (2008). Intersecting Illusions: Performing Magic, Disability, and Gender. In Performing Magic on the Western Stage (pp. 177-196). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.

Kafer, A. (2013). Feminist, queer, crip. Indiana University Press.

Morrigan, C. (2017). Trauma Magic World: A Critical (auto) theory Of Reenchantment.

[adventuresinmadgic]

Introduction

Hello! I started this blog as as place to document my thoughts and ideas about magic and witchcraft. I have been falling in and out of practice since I was about ten years old, but lately I have been trying to be more engaged with this part of myself. Magic has become important to me as a way of making meaning from the chaos and surviving in this fucked up world. 

I understand magic as a form of meaning-making. It is about making sense of things, and about reclaiming power and creating change. Magic happens at the margins of society. It is for those of us who have had our power ripped away from us. It is for those of us who feel powerless, unrepresented, and misunderstood within traditional systems of meaning and change-making (science, religion, medicine, psychiatry). It is for those of us who do not feel like we have a place to belong within consensus reality. To me, magic involves any system or practice which is dismissed as illegitimate within larger society. 

My practice is a way of making sense of and connecting my various identities. It is influenced by queer magic, and the magic that comes from breaking the hetero/cis-normative mold. Being queer has allowed me to question and challenge the rules and expectations of this world. Coming to terms with my non-binary identity has had great power in connecting myself to the femme, and allowed me to connect with my inner “witch.”

As a person who lives with chronic pain, I am also drawn to crip magic. Seeing other disabled people find ways to survive through magic and witchcraft has given me the motivation to return to my practice with a stronger intensity than before.

As someone with psychiatric diagnoses who identifies as Mad, I understand my madness as an important source of power and inspiration in my practice. Magic is a source of resistance to these psychiatric understandings and “treatments.” This system has tried to explain away my madness as a form of biochemical imbalance. Magic is about creating my own meanings from my madness. I also come from a background of community involvement within Mad / disability communities. Community, I think, is an important part of magic. Specifically, Mad people have always drawn power, and made magic happen, through community. Peer Support, Mad Studies, and so much activism and change has been developed and accomplished through Mad people forming community. In North America, a lot of this change occurred following institutionalisation. I liken the importance of this community to the power gained through forming a coven.

I am currently a student, working towards my bachelor of social work, where I am focusing on mad studies and disability studies perspectives. I am in this field because of my desire to work towards social change. Making change is about making magic and making magic is about making change.

Magic is a call to action, and magical ethics allows me to deepen my commitment to allyship. As a white settler, magic serves as a reminder of the importance of respecting and protecting the land on which I live, and the importance of active allyship with Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (BIPOC).

Once my BSW is complete, I am considering doing a masters thesis on magic and witchcraft as a source of healing and survival for disabled / Mad people. Specifically, I hope to present magic and witchcraft as a form of resistance of (and potential alternative to) psychiatric understandings of madness.

I have chosen to label this blog “Adventures in Madgic” to reflect my understanding of madness as a source of power and inspiration in my craft -- not to say that these other aspects of my identity are less important.  I think that is all I have to say for now. Hopefully I will have some other posts up soon. - cal