David Brooks, in his New York Times Op Ed, June 10,2019 The Age of Aquarius, All Over Again! was lazily inspired by a lengthy article by Tara Isabella Burton in The American Interest regarding “The Rise of Progressive Occultism”, adding his own rambling speculations to hers about the increasingly visible intersection and impact of resistance (“left-wing”) politics, astrology, mindfulness, wokeness and Witchcraft. Brooks acknowledges them as a responses to the “major needs of the moment” but fails to understand what those real needs are and how Witchcraft, in particular, has provided meaningful answers for much longer than a moment. He’s all over the map, dismissing it all as “occultism” in response to troubled times, which is why he’s confused by the “surprisingly normal” political activism of Witches. Brooks doubts “it’s possible to have “tight community and also total autonomy,” doubts that we can have something “life-shaping” because we have “detached [our] spiritual practices from the larger narratives and cultures,” doubts it is “sustainable.” It’s precisely the kind of privileged, patriarchal pontificating that makes women (and others) run naked and laughing into the woods when the moon if full.
https://wildhunt.org/2019/06/letters-to-the-editor-the-world-needs-her-witches.html
