[zmiyina]

I’m begging you to expand on your views on cannabis and its connection to Mokosh

Yes! Yes! You don't have to beg me here. I just want everyone to know, what is about to happen in this post is exactly the reason I can't make short videos.

I guess I want to start by... calibrating who we are talking about when we say "Mokosh". I will try to present the pieces of information we do have - you can make your own conclusions as to which sound true, however I find it is useful to frankly double check all available information now and again. To be completely frank, Slavic goddesses underwent a certain tradwification in the popular understanding that says more about the mythmakers than about the goddesses.

By that I mean that our current understanding of their potential character or sphere of influence seems to have shifted towards the image of a hearth-keeper and a Traditional (in the sense of the modern ideology) wife.

Anyway.

So, what do we have de facto: she was apparently the only goddess mentioned in the Pantheon of Volodymyr, which possibly might have been a calque from another foreign list of gods in place of Astarte. One quote mentions her before stating that pagan worshipers engaged in masturbation. This mention may have been a separate statement, or may have been added in relation to her cult. In one source the author is potentially making a parallel between Mokosh and Hekate by mentioning them next to each other in his condemnation of local pagan holdovers. I will mention, the sentence is ambiguous, and might also point to an unknown local goddess that was for come reason equated with Hekate. Her name, Mokosh, is generally understood to be derived from the word "wet", and water is an element that likewise tends to connect the earth, our life on this side, and Underworld forces.

It is very possible that the spinner and women's labour imagery has entered her identity with the introduction of St. Paraskeva. In any case, both earth fertility and harvest, water, and even the products of spinning and weaving are all connected to the cult of the dead in Slavic cultures. All this together paints a picture of her as something much more primal and chthonic than what we usually describe her as. In that sense, she is, as far as her spheres of potential influence are concerned, seems very much alike Veles.

And as I have talked about before, to me the presence of Mokosh is in some ways a continuance of Api, the Scythian "Gaia", who herself is often linked to the ancestral Snake-Legged Goddess.

All that out of the way (phew!), let's just explore where there threads might lead us.

Fist and foremost, as the screenshot mentions, the consensus etymology of the word "cannabis" links it linguistically and culturally to the Scythians. Of course the nature and presence of their gods and their spirituality did not vanish once we started calling our experiences on the same land with other names.

The potential link to funeral rites is also particularly fascinating in the light of the underworld connection I discussed before.

Now, I find the link to self-pleasure and its core association with fertility of living things personally very true, but I would question the centrality of agriculture as such in our interpretations. In this aspect, cannabis can stand as a teacher of joy and satisfaction. For the earth to produce crops and for our cattle to bring in their young, this principle by necessity must exist in the parts of nature that are nor bringing us profit, otherwise our relationship becomes exploitative. In that sense Mokosh holds the realignment towards work with the natural forces and the understanding that every living thing in nature that is not burdened by existential overthinking truly strives to act from a place of satisfaction and pleasure.

And I want to circle back to Mokosh's role as a spinner. Now, as I mentioned, it is possible the reference may have arrived from the Christinized layer of spirituality, however, it does not mean we must dismiss it as untrue, or that Mokosh herself does not seem to show an affinity to the textile arts and their symbolism. Textiles are also a traditional offering to Rusalkas. Now, the primary imagery here is that of sheep and wool, however, there is really no source or reason that would suggest that is somehow the only fiber source legitimately connected to Mokosh. I would argue that in a lot of folklore, Ukrainian folk songs in particular for example, hemp is both mentioned frequently in love divination and nature renewal narratives, and is often connected with feminine imagery. Honestly, it is quite possible we are missing out simply because hemp plants is apparently not something you bring up in polite society.

So I hope you made it to the end, stranger, and that this satisfies your curiosity.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

Extremely frustrating how people can "respect" you as someone who isn't Christian but still expect you to sing praises for Jesus, including other non-Christians?? "Well you still have to admit he was a pretty cool guy—" I don't have to admit shit actually! That guy can fuck off and so can you!

[spiderbitesandvampirevenom]

like if you're that pressed that youre a settler and the devils bargain your ancestors struck for that reality was the willful severing of your previous culture heritage idk. just move to europe or something

[alephskoteinos]

All the talk of incenses is also reminding me of something I saw from Porphyry and later Christian writers such as Augustine (possibly also the pagan Platonist Plutarch beforehand) going on about demons, or daimons (or at least "evil daimons" in particular) being satisfied by offerings that included vapours or smoke if I remember correctly.

[caelibane]

So Plotinus’ two main students were Porphyry and Iamblichus, who apparently had something of a rivalry with each other. Porphyry over his career as a philosopher took a pretty anti-material stance, and a part of that was a deep anxiety about the omnipresent daemonic. He divided daemons based on degree of control over their own spiritual bodies - rational daemons were entities born of the cosmic Soul and helped administer the sublunary sphere, irrational daemons were those who became overwhelmed by the sensations of the material and became engulfed by their own desires. They lie, cheat, misdirect proper religion, they are the agents of goeteia, they cause earthquakes and are just attributed to all sorts of nastiness. Their bodies are very pneumatic (airy) and because the air is full of moisture that weighs it down, so too are the irrational or evil daemons attracted to all sorts of sensations that weigh down the soul - sacrificed meat, drink, the exhalations of warm blood. Synesius, who was influenced by Porphyry even as he was adapting philosophy for Christian purposes, wrote in On Dreams of demons filling the mind as sensual pleasures make reason leave it - almost like how homeless people enter a vacant house. Porphyry in the fragments of Philosophy from Oracles writes of something similar, that not just dwelling places but the human body is filled with evil daemons, they enjoy the pleasures of the flesh by infesting the human body. They do this by adhering to food and drink like parasites getting eaten by a host. It’s remarkably similar to what you see from the Church Fathers and it demonstrates a strain of Platonism that has really profound anxiety toward the body.

[alephskoteinos]

Something about the idea of the omnipresent daemonic has me wanting to deepen it, with certain ideas about the wilderness full of demons very much in the background of the imagination.

[templeofthat]

"In his influential 1978 essay, Steven Katz emphasizes the role of the context in the formation of mystical experiences and casts doubts on the possibility of a typology of mystical experiences. He argues that writers on mysticism seem to take mystical terms more as names than as descriptions, erroneously taking descriptive mystical terms that refer to some ontological structure to be merely “arbitrary labels of some underlying common reality.” Katz’s contextualist position has been criticized as “hyper-Kantianism.” But the case of a typology of comparative mystical experiences does not have to rest on either extreme of the debate between relativist contextualism and the pure and unmediated consciousness of mystical experiences. Wolfson’s “intermediate position” suggests a way out of this dichotomy by advocating a modified contextualism. Wolfson validates the possibility of a typology of comparative mysticism and moves toward Eliade’s structuralist view that highlights the importance of the knowledge of structure for understanding the meaning of mystical experiences. By determining “the common structures underlying the manifold appearances of the phenomenon,” Wolfson argues, we can appreciate the unique status of mystical experience in the different religious traditions."

Rumi and the Hermeneutics of Eroticism, (39-40), Mahdi Tourage

[vitterdotter]

The Intersection of Outdoor Sports and Animism

Being a part of outdoor sports has influenced my magical practice, religious beliefs, and my understanding of animism.  The longer I remain in these kinds of spaces, the more I realize that I have an insane amount in common with self-proclaimed nonspiritual people in a very spiritual way, which has reaffirmed my belief that close communion with nature is a kind of religion of its own, whether you recognize it as spirituality or not.  Notably, what I observe the most is a very animistic belief without the label.  Beyond that, these communities are religious about the sports themselves, to the point where I’ve been told by friends that they don’t feel like they need religion because they get everything they would want from spirituality from their sport.

Hostile Environments and Trolls I’m predominantly a caver, and this definitely is the largest influence on my practice.  I think in part, it’s also because of the cave environment itself:  there’s very few places that get so remote so quickly.  There’s limited resources (almost exclusively however much you can carry) and limited physical capacities (one day of hard caving uses about 5000 calories!), which reinforces that this is an inherently hostile environment. For me, it very much echoes an animistic worldview, but it particularly brings me closer to the trolls of folklore and the jotnar of Norse mythology, who are both powerful initiators and beings that will wreck you, in a life-ending way.  I find that a lot of modern spirituality emphasizes historically hostile entities as misunderstood, and one of the most heartbreaking parts of modern trolldom practice is watching the active declawing of trolls and related spirits.  Frankly, I can’t blame people.  It’s hard to understand how people would have historically viewed the trolls, when the comforts of modern life makes it difficult to conceptualize the harshness of nature.  I adore the outdoors, with every bit of my being, but the romanticization of nature in pagan communities seriously destroys understanding of the spectrum of beings we interact with every day.  Even seemingly safe environments in nature can become very hostile understand sudden conditions:  hypothermia from rain in the wrong clothes, a sudden injury, etc.

It’s in caves that I first really felt like I was close to the trolls.  If you sit still, deep inside, it feels as if there’s something slowly shifting in the walls.  I see the trolls in the rock that suddenly shifts underneath me, threatening to throw me off balance.  I see the trolls in the bone-chilling cold that sets in after a wet-section.  I see the trolls in the total darkness as I turn off the lights to go to sleep at camp.  I see the trolls in my failing muscles that are screaming out to eat more, in my bruised body from throwing myself against hard rock, in the fear that hits me when I realize how wrong something could go.  But I also see the trolls in the way my aching muscles give me the best sleep, in the feeling of elation and ecstasy of standing somewhere no one has ever been before, in the comfort of friends in an unforgiving environment.  I think trolls have a similar reputation as caves do, but being harsh and unforgiving doesn’t make something evil and malicious.  They exist as they are, in their own environment, and we have no choice but to submit to their forces.  This puts Tor fighting the jotnar into perspective for me too:  he’s not a brute for this, this is the fight for survival against an inherently hostile existence that the Old Norse lived within.  There’s a lot to fear, as much as there is a lot to love.

Offerings to a Sentient Nature White-water kayaking has recently become an interest of mine over the past year, and I find it deeply fascinating to listen to conversations around water.  A friend of mine was talking about cleaning up any trash she finds in the river as a way to “gain good river favor” while she’s out on the water.  Similarly to caving, moving water can be unforgiving.  These small offerings reflect a natural animistic worldview, where nature is sentient enough to perceive your actions and develop a relationship with you, therefore affecting the outcome of your life as well.  Granted, a lot of my friends do something similar with the mindset of “I know it’s silly and I don’t *really* believe it, but I do it just in case”.  But regardless, I think the fact that if there’s a gnawing feeling that there’s some intangible presence, and this feeling is big enough to warrant acting on it, it is an animistic way of living.  I think that there’s this idea that faith is something you have or don’t, rather than acknowledging belief as a spectrum.  What I find more and more is that people who spend prolonged periods of time outdoors do develop animistic belief.  

I do find it interesting to think about whether this belief is within all people, and personal experience with the enspirited nature simply brings it forward, or if it is the inherently hostile environment of the outdoors that results in the natural emergence of superstition that is believed to bring survival (or even abundance).  Maybe there isn’t a difference between these two ideas.  But I do believe that an animistic worldview naturally prompts a person to consider what it means to build a relationship with the nonhuman spirits around them.  How fascinating that people from all backgrounds come back to offerings!  Despite the appearance, this isn’t a purely transactional relationship.  There is a deep love for nature, a deep respect for its ability to affect life and limb, and an inherent relationship that emerges from simply interacting with it.  The offering doesn’t represent a transaction, this is a human way we show love and care to the intangible.  And in return, we hope that the river might care for us a bit more as we care for it, and although it cannot hold its very nature back from us, maybe it will allow us to navigate its forces a little easier.

Connection over Commodification While it’s less of a sport, a lot of outings have ended with foraging, or started with some plant identification on the approach.  A friend of mine was really into foraging edible plants, and she recently reflected on this phase of her life.  At the time, she was interested in foraging as self-sufficiency, as a way to be less dependent on grocery stories.  What she learned was that foraging is a serious investment!  A lot of time and effort goes into foraging, and even more into cooking various plants so that they won’t upset your system (fiddleheads come to mind).  Ultimately, trying to live off of foraging wasn’t worth the time and effort for her, but she does keep with it for the love of the activity.  Foraging isn’t about what you can get out of nature.  Connection remains when commodification is removed.  

I think about her perspective on foraging a lot, especially as I think of how Scandinavian folklore depicts poverty foods as plants of the Devil.  Blueberries, for example, earn their dark color from the Devil’s shoeshine (according to one story from Swedish folklore).  When you spend a lot of time in intimate connection with nature, you become much more aware of all these little details that you’d normally miss.  This time-consuming labor of love invites our imaginations to create stories, relating the world of nature to our world and understanding.  If the only goal is commodification of nature, to pick as many St. John’s Wort as possible, would you notice the way that the yellow herb stains your skin red like blood?  Would you create stories of connection?  Would you care to understand the intricacies of how the natural world flows together?

Personal Connection to Nature as Religion Despite the hostile conditions, so many cavers feel a sort of love with certain caves.  I’ve listened to a man describe mentally moving through his favorite cave every night before bed.  When he gets to the end of the last explored point, he then imagines what lies beyond (according to him, he’s pretty accurate).  I’ve heard debates about whether certain caves “want” us there or not, with evidence being something like “this one rock is too perfect of a chair for the cave to not want us there”.  I’ve heard similar debates about the benevolence of a cave.  This isn’t about whether or not a cave wants us or not, but rather the obsession with the idea that a cave might love us as much as we love it.  There is a real obsession and adoration among cavers that mirror a sort of divine love and awe I find in religion.  

This goes to this belief that I deeply hold, that personal connection to nature inspires us to protect it.  Personal connection fosters a desire to conserve and to care.  We all (hopefully) know that nature is worth saving, but it’s a completely different emotional impact to stand in a room full of calcite formations that have lived long before you and will live long after you, yet are fragile enough that any ill-intending person could destroy living history.  It’s a different emotional impact to truly see how little life can exist underground, yet to see so many forms of it thriving, and to know the threats that above-ground destruction (like climate change) can do to these extremely sensitive environments.  The more time you spend in nature, the more religious you become about caring for these environments in whatever way you can.  And as you care for nature, you can’t help but wonder if those same forces care for you.  As I wonder if the cave cares for me, I can’t help but see the mirror of nights wondering if Hyndla cares for me too.

Allow Yourself to be Shaped I’ve never climbed without scrapes, bruises, cuts, and blisters.  In some cases, it would be so much easier (and less painful) to hike the mountain rather than climbing the cliffside up.  Obviously, there’s a love for the sport of rock climbing itself, but why else climb?  For me personally, there’s a real appeal that comes with being shaped by nature, the same way humans shape nature every day.  My every action allows myself to be changed.  The sun beats down on me, the wind tousles my hair, the rock removes skin, and I am physically changed.  I sit on a cliffside in between pitches, I look out over the rolling ridges, and I understand I’m receiving a view that I can only get because I have allowed myself to step outside of my sense of protection.  I shed my comfort, I let go of what makes me feel safe, I allow myself to get beat up by nature a little, and in the process, I receive a sort of magical alchemy.  I really don’t have words.

Similarly, it’s special for your every action and decision to be motivated by the shape of nature.  It exists as it is, it is up to you to navigate it.  I find this particularly true when rock and ice climbing.  If I break a particularly good ice hold, I cannot make the ice grow back, I must work with the new route laid in front of me.  When I rock climb, the holds that exist in front of me are all I have to work with, and my option is going up.  Learning to read the environment, and make judgements off of it, translates to so many other parts of my spiritual practice as well.  How different is reading a route and reading omens really?

Conclusion In conclusion, you should explore an outdoor sport.  It doesn’t have to be any extreme or crazy, but movement can be spiritual, and if you consider yourself to engage in nature worship in any way, it will teach you so much more than you can imagine.  There’s options at all levels for all people, and I truly will never shut up about this.

[salixsociety]

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!! I loved reading so many of our conversations coming to fruition in this post and I COULD NOT AGREE MORE. fantastic job writing this, it's clear this is knowledge and passion you could contribute to many a life with if you let yourself. I want more of these subject matters in the pagan community!!! bring religion into real life, into the world!!

[slavicafire]

A riddle mediates between man and the Other — its voice is sometimes the bard’s, sometimes the bird’s. We contrive to know the riddler’s meaning, the creature’s world. Through other eyes we see our own symbolic systems. With reason we separate day from night, man from monster, plant from penis — only to discover in riddles a nightmare of resemblances and crossed categories. 

Can the fox be a great mother, the moon a night-bandit, the sword a celibate and serving thane? Can the dead ox revive to carry man (shoes) or sing through its skin the word of God (Bible)? Can a bird be a poet, a bagpipe a bird? This is the power the word confers — especially in the shape of metaphor.

Disguise and disclosure are the twin movements of metaphor and riddle.

- A Feast of Creatures: Anglo-Saxon Riddle-Songs, Craig Williamson

[salixsociety]

Appropriation Isn't What You've Been Told It Is

Ethnic Envy: Chapter 1 in a series on Appropriation and Ethnocide in the Witchcraft Community

It is the year of our gods, 2026, and still to this day the modern witchcraft community - though very loud about the subject - relies largely on lists of closed practices, regurgitated factoids, and hardcore policing in order to keep cultural appropriation in check. Why, in a community overwhelmingly dominated by progressives and leftists, is the fight against appropriation ever-raging? To answer this, we will explore the underlying mechanics of appropriation, and uncover a sinister aspect of the history of modern witchcraft.

Culture and Commodity: Understanding Appropriation

Most of us are content to blame racism for the prevalence of appropriation in our midst. And we should by no means downplay its significance in this matter; its existence is one of the reasons cultural appropriation is so dangerous. Racially motivated cultural appropriation perpetuates stereotypes and instils hate and misunderstanding - blackface is the prime example. But, if most appropriation that happened was explicitly racially motivated, there would not nearly be as much appropriation as we see. After all, wearing feather headdresses or sexy qipao halloween costumes has been thoroughly cracked down upon in comparison to the appropriation we still see. It's simply not that acceptable anymore. Most appropriation that occurs isn't explicitly racially motivated, or indeed, motivated at all. From what we see among our peers, most cultural appropriation is accidental, unintentional. So how does that happen?

Turns out, there is a fouler enemy using racism to deflect blame. In her essay, Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance, bell hooks famously wrote:

Within current debates about race and difference, mass culture is the contemporary location that both publicly declares and perpetuates the idea that there is pleasure to be found in the acknowledgment and enjoyment of racial difference. The commodification of Otherness has been so successful because it is offered as a new delight, more intense, more satisfying than normal ways of doing and feeling. Within commodity culture, ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture.

What I would like to draw special attention to here is this phrase: the dull dish that is mainstream white culture.

Most of us know white supremacy as the explicit belief that white people are better than other races, based in the idea that "races" exist at all (racial theory). But in reality, it goes quite a lot deeper than that. WS has created, and aims to perpetuate, a worldwide social system that regards whiteness as the 'default', and racial features as deviating from that default. This is the 'Otherness' Hooks describes in the above quote. This system is so thoroughly integrated into every aspect of our world, that nobody is free from this bias. You, reader, and me, and everybody we both know, have been conditioned from birth to be able to perceive whiteness, assess it, assimilate into it, and view it as the default way of existing. In order to accomplish this, white supremacy aims to destroy the existing cultures that various white peoples have, to homogenize them under the banner of 'white'. This is why so many white people truly believe that white people have no culture, and also why every time someone says that you should loudly protest.

But keen readers may think back to instances where white supremacists have stolen aspects of certain "white" cultures to justify their actions, like for example the fake Germanic spirituality of historic and contemporary Nazis. And if that was you, I applaud you! You have discovered exactly how this relates to the modern spiritual community.

Desire and Resistance: the History of Modern Witchcraft What we now know as the modern pagan or witchy community was built on the back of the very first community who were willing to call themselves pagans and witches: Wiccans. I have a longer form post detailing the origins of Wicca and its contribution to white supremacy, but in short, here is what you need to know.

Wicca was created in the 1950s by a con artist named Gerald Gardner. He based this new religion partially off of things he learned from various Western Esotericist groups, and partially off of the pseudoscientific Witch-cult hypothesis. This hypothesis claimed that, rather than it being already marginalized groups who were being persecuted during the European witch trials, it was actually a pan-European pagan religion oriented around fertility magic that had gone underground. Gardner claimed to have met some modern descendants and practitioners of this witch-cult religion, and to have been initiated into their tradition, which he called The Wica. This new movement was supposed to be an ancient, traditionally European religion. Later evolutions of Wicca furthered this agenda, using the Lord/Lady model as a soft-polytheistic way to combine all European paganisms into one, ready-made religion. Homogenization, anyone?

At the time of its creation, Wicca was an almost direct result of the growing resentment toward industrialism and Christianity in colonial Britain. The Victorians yearned for a deviation from what they perceived as the boring, straight-laced Christian culture, their default-ness, their bland means of existing. They craved indigeneity, ethnicity, the perceived 'ancient wisdom' of a fake pagan past - so they sought it by using culture, real or imagined, as a tool for personal satisfaction. And that sense of need, along with the commodification that it causes, has persisted into the modern day. It got more severe in with the advent of the counter-culture movements in the 60s and 70s, which is where we can trace some of the appropriation of Native American spirituality that we can still see today. And then came the internet, and what was originally a fairly structured community of Wiccan and New Age practitioners unintentionally started to mix and mistake ideas and ideologies, as well as import new ones. Today, the modern community of spiritual practitioners is deeply diverse, but conventional witchcraft maintains most of its core features from those early days. Indeed, the very act of calling yourself a witch at all, comes from Wicca. But more importantly, what was once a fringe new-religious movement has turned into one of the west's leading expressions of spirituality. Why? Because the desire for ethnicity has not faded, but only gotten stronger.

So thus armed with information, we return to bell hooks. "Mass culture is the contemporary location that both publicly declares and perpetuates the idea that there is pleasure to be found in the acknowledgment and enjoyment of racial difference." Mass culture, in this context, is conventional witchcraft. Uncomfortable as it is for us to admit, over the last decades but especially since COVID, "witchcraft" has become a trend. The desire Hooks describes made this ready-made religion an easy way to deviate from the white mainstream, and a lack of resistance meant that those perpetuating this cycle couldn't and wouldn't be held accountable. The process of adopting magic into the mainstream could thus be boosted by extreme commodification, like the new idea that 'intention is everything', or the notion of 'universal substitutes', as well as quick and easy identity labels. All designed to make it as easy to swallow, practice, and make part of your identity as possible.

By being a "witch," by buying into the habit of setting yourself apart as those among the oppressed, the unconventional, the ancient or subversively traditional, one is acknowledging and enjoying the pleasure of racial difference, and perpetuating that idea. The desire to be a witch at all, is the desire to be racial. The desire to shed whiteness and embrace ethnicity. The desire to use Otherness as a spice, to season the dull dish that is what people perceive to be mainstream white culture.

And that is where we find the heart of appropriation in contemporary spiritual spaces. The appropriation we see is not that which is driven by hate or contempt, but ethnic envy. The compulsive draw towards all that which appears, to many, to deviate from what they perceive to be plain whiteness. Modern, conventional witchcraft, is often nothing but the perpetuation of a long-lived imperial tradition of cultural consumption, exoticization, and commodification that finds its roots in white supremacy. The appropriation that we see is not meant to mock, but to use culture and defiance as an escapist tool to satisfy a personal malcontent with the entrapment of a post-industrial, post-colonial world. White people's sense of self, sense of own, inherent culture, has been whipped to shreds by the vice of Christian imperialism and white supremacy. All that is left now for them is to take indigeneity from others and wear it as a costume. Right?

Race, Racialization, and the Cycle of Consumption

Wrong. Perhaps the most dangerous misconception of all, in this discussion, is that cultural appropriation only affects non-white people. It is that implicit notion - that white people have no culture, and therefore cannot be appropriated from, or alternatively that white people do not deserve their cultures to be preserved and therefore cannot be appropriated from - that has allowed this harm and envy to live so long in the first place. Appropriation itself has been racialized, perpetuating the cycle of desperate envy directed at anyone perceived as ethnic. It is no longer just racist ideals of mystique, freedom, and exoticism contained in indigeneity, it is also the fervent envy of the associated sense of home and its protection.

In actuality, the appropriation of various "white" cultures is a massive contributor to the problem. Wicca itself is the main perpetrator in our modern community, it's a case in point when it comes to homogenization. It viciously appropriated from various European (and non-European) cultures, misrepresenting them and stripping them of their identity, to create a false narrative of universal European indigeneity for people to subscribe to. It popularized this idea that European pagan religions are all more or less the same, that you can mix and match deities from various cultures and countries and worship them all the same according to a basic religious framework. It strips these cultures of their identity, their differences, their own inherent ethnicity - instead turning them into an easily commodified identity label. It thus turns the wheel of the cycle: Wicca itself became just another 'white people thing', a bland, mainstream piece of white culture that lacked seasoning and interest. We are seeing the effects currently: Wicca has fallen out of fashion, nobody is willing to self-identify as a Wiccan anymore, instead opting for such things as 'eclectic pagan' which in everything but name is the same thing.

The same thing will eventually happen to eclectic paganism, to witchcraft, to 'paganism' in general, and on and on it will go. The snake will continue to slowly devour its way up its tail for as long as we allow it to. Until we start cracking down on real, actual appropriation and homogenization hard, including when it happens to cultures you deem less ethnic, these "white" cultures will continue to phase out of the limelight as they lose their flavoring and are assimilated into mainstream, white supremacist culture - necessitating replacements, necessitating absorbing more cultures into the mainstream. Anything so the consumption at mach speed can continue.

Knowing that exoticism and the desire to participate in it is often a driving factor in people's unconscious motivation when it comes to magic and spirituality, explains why people keep unintentionally finding new ways to appropriate. Understanding that commodification is how this habit is perpetuated, explains why we want to simplify matters of appropriation down to false dichotomies like "closed" and "open" practices. It's all about how to maintain the appearance of cultural sensitivity, while taking the path of absolute least resistance. Symbolic change is easier than real ones. Staring at a list is easier than considering your personal motives.

Per bell hooks again:

Certainly from the standpoint of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, the hope is that desires for the “primitive” or fantasies about the Other can be continually exploited, and that such exploitation will occur in a manner that reinscribes and maintains the status quo.

False Hopes and Good Intentions

I certainly appreciate and acknowledge that people in the community have the very best of intentions. They truly believe, in most cases, that the approach they are taking by heeding lists of "closed practices" and policing other people is how they help, and that accidentally appropriating is all but par for the course when it comes to practicing magic. But we are not fighting an invisible enemy. Like many marginalized communities whose cultures are frequently appropriated have been saying for at least a decade now: "I didn't know" doesn't cut it anymore.

Our community is built on appropriation. Indeed it could be said that our entire community is fundamentally appropriative. Our founding fathers, as well as the very foundations our basic principles and common beliefs rest on, exist because of the appropriation of suffering that was never ours to claim, and cultures that we could not possibly belong to - either because they never existed, or because they did... only a thousand or more years ago. Our community is not about expressing a kind of spirituality that those who join already felt prior to their discovery of the community. If that were the case, theology, cosmology, philosophy and actual real life practice would take center stage. Magic is a trend, religion a token for identity politics. It is for that reason that people struggle to maintain a practice, that people fight for their lives to feel a connection to their supposed beliefs, that people spend more money on books by other practitioners than minutes considering the beliefs of those whose cultures they are invading into. And, indeed, it is for that reason that we simply can't help ourselves when it comes to appropriation.

We are constantly drawn to that which looks exotic to us, because all sense of novelty and individualism has been stripped from "white" cultures. To actually practice paganism, rather than a hyper-individualistic appropriation of it, you have to read archaeology books, historic accounts of folklore, ethnobotany. But nobody does that - including those who write the infotainment books geared toward practitioners. Instead, we appropriate from cultures we perceive as exotic, and when caught, we reframe our appropriations. They're not "chakras," they're energy centers. It's not "smudging," it's saining. Nevermind that "energy" as a modern concept is borrowed from Theosophy, which has its own racist and appropriative roots, and saining is a culturally distinct practice unique to Scotland - but that doesn't matter, because they're white people things. Or to take the example of masked appropriation even further: we may have started mocking the "we are the daughters of the witches you couldn't burn" nonsense, but the victim complex never left our midst: the "broom closet" as a way to co-opt the suffering of queer people who get no choice in their identity, when the physical expression of individualistic spirituality is absolutely a choice; the undying lie that pagans and witches are a monolith severely oppressed under Christianity, when in reality pagans and witches everywhere are not just free from systemic oppression, but actively contributing to it.

Some grow so hopeless with the entire notion of needing to respect culture that they reject culture altogether, or at least they think they do. Some take the route of trying to create their own traditions altogether, with no pre-established framework to operate off of. They are not free from the draw toward exoticism, quite the contrary: they are more likely to end up appropriating by cherrypicking features of spirituality they see others practice or from their foggy memory. Others attempt to combat appropriation by engaging in homogenization and sanitization. They strip their practice of words that have meaning altogether, thinking that just because they call it a "smoke cleanse" or "deity work" it cannot be cultural and thus cannot be appropriation. They live their lives woefully unaware of the fact that everything people do exists within the sphere of culture.

The point of all of these examples being: good intentions aren't good enough. We may not be able to undo the damage done by the commodification of ancient and indigenous spirituality, but we can shift the tides of social expectation and accountability. It is time to stop mistaking tolerance for progress, and by that token, it is time to stop tolerating the commodification of spirituality. It may have become one, but it should not be a trend. It should not be a way to soothe one's white guilt.

-----------------------

In the next chapters in this series, I aim to discuss more ways the community perpetuates appropriation, cultural imperialism and racism, such as the closed/open culture dichotomy and other disinformation, as well as how to decolonize your own practice and motivations, how to recognize appropriation and combat it, and the value and role of culture in our lives and our community. When those parts are completed, they will be linked here, as well as in each individual chapter, and eventually a masterpost. I hope to see you in the next one.

Further Reading:

Climenhaga, L. (2012). Imagining the Witch: A Comparison between Fifteenth-Century Witches within Medieval Christian Thought and the Persecution of Jews and Heretics in the Middle Ages.

“The Dehumanization and Demonization of the Medieval Jews.” Medieval Antisemitism?, by François Soyer, Arc Humanities Press, Leeds, 2019, pp. 45–66.

Simpson, Jacqueline (1994). Margaret Murray: Who Believed Her, and Why? Folklore, 105:1-2: 89-96.

Heselton, Philip (2003). Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration: An Investigation Into the Sources of Gardnerian Witchcraft. Capall Bann.

“From Cultural Exchange to Transculturation: A Review and Reconceptualisation of Cultural Appropriation”. Communication Theory. Richard A. Rogers.

“Plastic Shamans and Astroturf Sun Dances: New Age Commercialization of Native American Spirituality” Lisa Aldred.

[salixsociety]

Witches need to stop using death for social clout.

witches need to stop pretending that death isn't a part of everyone's daily life.

witches need to stop pretending that most of the world doesn't experience far MORE death in their day to day life than witches in the global west.

witches need to stop going around and calling themselves "psychopomps" and "death witches" because they saw a dead body once or twice or have been told they're wise by grieving people or because they stop to pout over roadkill.

witches need to stop using people's and animals' and things' deaths as reasons that they are somehow magically set apart from the rest of practitioners.

witches need to stop claiming that they have a special relationship with death like we do not all have our own complex relationships with mortality and morbidity.

witches who think they have a special relationship with death need to stop profiting off those claims and start working hard to prevent more needless death.

witches need to stop claiming to be "surrounded" or "followed" by death when they live in first world countries and still, clearly, think of death as dark and shocking and taboo.

witches who socially profit off other people's deaths need to start donating to people in need and people who are dying.

witches need to learn when it's time to shut up and be silent about an aspect of their practice to preserve the sacredness of it.

witches need to stop mistaking performing burial rites or envisioning the transition between life and death for being a psychopomp.

witches need to stop contributing to the stigmatization of death while personally profiting off of it and getting clout because they pain't themselves as special.

witches need to stop pretending that "death magic" is somehow more powerful than other magic.

witches need to stop pretending magic isn't inherently related to death even if you don't call yourself a "death witch."

witches need to stop treating death like some arcane, untouchable, unfathomable, distant thing.

witches need to stop treating death as taboo, mysterious, dangerous, and more powerful than other forces.

witches need to accept that "death magic" isn't as dangerous as they make it out to be to look more powerful.

witches need to start acknowledging ALL death including those they cause, like the ones caused by their taxes, like the ones killed for their food, like the ones killed for their clothes.

witches need to acknowledge that ALL things die, not just animals, and consider what that means.

witches need to start acknowledging that not every death or dead thing they see is in need of their help somehow.

witches need to stop treating "death magic" as a badge of special honor.

witches who claim special relationships with death need to accept the value and necessity of lives of others and their own.

witches who claim special relationships with death need to accept that sometimes killing is necessary and consider the ethics of that deeply.

witches need to start giving a fuck about the living.

[slewfootwitch]

This is just personal musing, but I think there is a particular misunderstanding sometimes of what folklore intends when it paints certain archetypes and recurring figures as being "othered" or as "standing outside of society". There are many figures that are portrayed in this way in European folklore (including witches, criminals, outcasts, monsters, etc.). And, with cursory study, that can appear to imply forthrightly that, yes, witches and monsters and criminals and outcasts and so on are outsiders to society.

But it's the other way around. Folklore is not telling us that the witches and the monsters and the criminals are outsiders. We already know that and we don't need to be told. What the folklore is showing us is the belief that the outsiders to (Christian, European) society were the witches, monsters, and criminals. (Sometimes this "outsider" status was quite literal due to actual limitations on where non-Christians could reside in early modern Europe.) The prevalence of these figures who work directly against the Christian God and Christ, who denounce him, who serve the Christian Devil, etc. is there because of (Christian, European) society's innate distrust of their neighbors who were not Christian.

In modern magical practice, I do think it's absolutely valid for witches to choose to view themselves as being outside of Christian society or in opposition to the Church as an institution. But I also think there is a line that is crossed at some point where folkloric literalism or folkloric romanticism attempts to erase the historical fact that much of the corpus of European folklore is told from the perspective of Christian society, and that many of these figures exist solely as expressions or tools of theological antisemitism, Church-sanctioned misogyny, and the intentional systemic exclusion of "othered" groups.

I love folklore. I live for folklore. European folklore and fairytales have been my passions for decades. But I don't romanticize or literalize folklore. It's not history. It's not unbiased. And (at least to me) it's not a how to for witchcraft. And loving folklore (for me) means understanding and accepting that and not trying to paint over it.

[elminx]

Energy Update: April 2026

April is a "5" Universal Month [4 (April) + 1 (2026) = 5] in a "1" Universal Year. "5" months tend to involve a lot of tension and strife, as they break up the perceived solidity of the "4" month that comes before it. This is in line with this month, which is dominated by a major stellium of Mercury, Mars, and Saturn, who will meet up in conjunction with one another at 07° Aries towards the end of the month. Things are going to feel complicated and acutely personal all month long.

The Set Up

We begin the month with the Sun, Saturn, and Neptune in Aries, Mercury and Mars in Pisces, Venus and Uranus in Taurus, Jupiter in Cancer, and Pluto in Aquarius. By the end of the month, the Sun will have entered Taurus, Mercury and Mars will enter Aries, and Venus and Uranus will enter Gemini. All planets will be in direct motion this month.

The Nitty Gritty

April looks much easier than February or March, but we still have to contend with Saturn in Aries, as it is Aries season. This Aries season is not going to Aries like we want it to; the natural cardinality of the Ram is significantly slowed down by the weighty presence of Saturn.

At a glance, it may seem like this is the absolute antithesis of Aries season (Saturn is detrimented in Aries, after all), but if you look deeper, Saturn energy is good, solid springtime energy. If you do not plant any seeds, there will be no harvest. Boom, Saturn energy unlocked. This is your sign to work WITH Saturn in Aries energy, not struggle against it. The work you put into your own life will be rewarded. The results may come slowly (Saturn energy...), but they are coming.

The Lights: The Sun and the Moon

We begin the month with a strong full moon on the 1st at 12° Libra. This Moon is well appointed because Libra is ruled by Venus and Venus is in the sign of her domain, Taurus. The Sun will still be widely conjunct to Saturn (06°), which will tone down the energy somewhat. This supports magic working with the Sun in Aries, Moon in Libra, Venus, or Saturn. Libra is the sign of the other and relationships, but with Saturn so tightly involved, I would avoid any relationship magic unless you are very serious about that partnership.

Energies will be heightened throughout this lunation (especially in the evening, when the full moon goes exact in the US), and it could create some domestic troubles, especially in partnerships where one person isn't holding up their end of the bargain.

We should note that the Aries Sun is already in a tightening square to Jupiter in Cancer (exact on 4/5), so I wouldn't call this lunation "lucky" by any means. More necessary.

The Sun will remain mostly unaspected all month. It makes a conjunction to Chiron at 26° Aries on 4/16 and then a major stellium with the Moon and Chiron during the new moon at 27° Aries the next day on 4/17. This is a day to step carefully. For some (especially those with planets in late Aries or Libra), this may bring back situations that arose during our total solar eclipse in Aries in the spring of 2024. There, the Sun, Moon, Mercury, and Chiron were conjunct. Chiron has been holding on to any aches and pains from that eclipse season. This is a chance to clear out anything that feels really stuck, and also an opportunity to set intention with Aries energy that isn't as inhibited by Saturn's presence.

On 4/19, the Sun enters Taurus. This is a mixed bag. Normally, this isn't great because the Sun is exalted in Aries, but, as I said above, Aries season can't Aries like it's supposed to this year. We might not get any more spring in our step until we've entered Taurus season. First they sleep, and all that...

Things are growing, and we ARE getting somewhere. It just may not feel like it for most of the month.

Our Taurus Sun will square off with Pluto in Aquarius on 4/25, but most people won't notice it.

Saturn in Aries

Saturnian energy is going to take center stage all month, at least through 4/19-4/20. This is our first Aries season with Saturn in Aries, and shit is about to get real. There is no avoiding Saturn if he comes knocking - sooner or later, even the most avoidant person needs to pay the piper.

The big flex is knowing what you owe and having your dues ready.

We can see this Aries season as a karmic tax season. I don't mean that new-agey, woo version of karma (oooh, what comes around, goes around) either. That's not astrological karma. Astrological karma is more like the pendulum swing: what goes out, must come back. You are born into a certain time, to a certain group of people, and that time and that group of people have karma. It was all of our karma to live in a time of a global pandemic - with its good, its bad, and its ugly. It is our karma to have to deal with the aftermath of the lockdowns, the misinformation, and the very real collective trauma that is still unfolding.

If you are not hiding under a rock, you can probably see that all of us - the collective We - need to have a great reckoning. Climate change tipping at the point of no return, fascism on the rise, disaster after disaster after disaster, yet another war over oil. All of these things have the potential to "come due" in the month ahead.

It's important to note that Saturn is not a personal planet. Yes, some people will have a personal reconning while Saturn is in Aries, but this is also - more accurately - going to be a collective reconning.

It will be more personal for people with the luminaries (Sun and Moon), personal planets (Mercury, Venus, or Mars), or Saturn in Aries. But it will have a social impact, and those most sensitive are always affected by this.

We are in this shit (Saturn in Aries) until April of 2028 - this is a long-haul transit; the expected value of slow-moving Saturn. The energy of this is going to be most pronounced during Aries and Libra seasons, but we'll get some pressure during Cancer and Capricorn seasons as well.

We note here that the cardinal signs have been on blast since early 2020, when we had a major planetary stellium in Capricorn; this is the continuation of a theme.

If you have Saturn in Aries, this is your Saturn return. You need to pay attention to everything Saturn does in your sign, but watch especially for when it conjuncts your natal Saturn (this may be up to 3x). If you have a luminary or personal planet in any of the cardinal signs, you might want to stay attentive as well. You will feel this the most when Saturn is within 05° aspect (conjunction, square, or opposition) to your planet.

Depending on your personal relationship to Saturn and what is going on in your life, major Saturnian transits can range from mildly challenging to back-breakingly difficult. It's wise to remember that Saturn brings the hammer of consequence, but rewards are consequences, too. Saturn doesn't have to be the bad guy - we humans paint him in that light.

Stellium: Mercury, Mars, and Saturn 07° Aries 4/19-4/20

Mercury and Mars have already been conjunct with one another twice this year, once in early Aquarius and again during Mercury's retrograde in Pisces. Now Mercury passes Mars for a third time in spunky, aggressive Aries. Mars is even in his domain in Aries! That's what I would normally say about this aspect.

Mercury and Mars are our two fastest planets. Mercury is literally fast, moving around the Sun 3-4x a year, while Mars's fiery energy is quite quick on his feet (and most especially Mars in Aries energy!). These two combined feel like nearly literal combustion, the wind running through the flame and sparking more!

Saturn is a Hard Stop. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

As you might guess, this won't end well for many people. Your goal should be to make sure that you are not one of those people. It might not be possible. Saturn is definitely not always within our control.

I am painting this cosmic STOP sign through this missive; it's your choice whether to heed the warning.

Where are you rushing too fast in your own life? Saturn in Aries can be kind of sneaky; it can trick us into thinking that if we just run fast enough and hard enough, the Storm won't catch up. Aries (and to some degree all of the cardinal signs) have the bad habit of disassociating through action.

Never stop moving seems like a sound strategy until it doesn't. If you never stop moving, you probably didn't stop to smell the flowers, and you missed the sensation of wind in your hair as you stood quietly at the peak, and you probably weren't present at your person's birthday party or on the phone with your Mom.

With such a strong planetary presence in Aries, we are all likely to feel a lot of pressure to keep going and keep moving this month.

The big flex is to step away from that collective pressure and find a place of rest. It might not be possible.

Carve out any space you can for yourself this month. Do slow things. Eat real food. Take a walk on the beach or go forest bathing. Do what will soothe your heavy heart.

This is going to be hard for many people. Do the best you can with what is coming up for you. Help others if you've got the energy.

I'm not particularly fond of any Mars-Saturn conjunction, so I'm a little bit grateful for Mercury's help here. Mercury's a great verbal negotiator, and their trickster vibes can defuse tense situations.

Our Personal Planets: Mercury, Venus, and Mars

We should all rejoice as between 4/9 and 4/24, Venus and Mars will both be in the signs of their domains (Taurus and Aries, respectively), which is a great boon for relationships of all kinds and helps the general "vibes" of the Gen Pop. We are finally seeing the planets shift back into their standard roles, with Mars as the aggressor and Venus as the diplomat. This supports all types of magic designed to support diplomacy, aggression, and all types of relationships that fit the standard M/f dynamic. (Don't disregard Mars' strong stellium with Saturn and Mercury around 4/19 and 4/20, though)

Overall, our planetary placements this month look like a major improvement. Mercury finally leaves their post-retrograde shadow and then finally Pisces (the sign of both their fall and their exile). Venus is in Taurus until 4/24, and Mars enters Aries on 4/9. Communication may get a bit on the aggressive side (Mercury in Aries), but otherwise, getting along with other people should be relatively easy, especially in comparison to how it has been since February.

Other than the major stellium mentioned above, none of our personal planets make any significant aspects this month.

Looking Forward

May looks much better than the preceding months. The two big astrological notes of the month are double full moons on 5/1 and 5/31 (not a blue moon because they don't occur in the same sign), and a square between our Gemini Sun and the lunar nodes demarking the halfway points between eclipse seasons.

The Details

4/1 - Full Moon 12° Libra 4/3 - Mercury in Pisces trine Jupiter in Cancer (3), Venus in Taurus square Pluto in Aquarius 4/5 - Sun in Aries square Jupiter in Cancer 4/9 - Mercury exits its post retrograde shadow 22° Pisces, Mars enters Aries 4/13 - Mars conjunct Neptune 02° Aries 4/14 - Mercury enters Aries 4/16 - Sun conjunct Chiron 26° Aries, Mercury conjunct Neptune 02° Aries 4/17 - New Moon 27° Aries 4/19 - Sun enters Taurus, Mars conjunct Saturn 07° Aries 4/20 - Mercury conjunct Saturn 07° Aries, Mercury conjunct Mars 07° Aries 4/23 - Venus conjunct Uranus 29° Taurus 4/24 - Venus enters Gemini 4/25 - Sun in Taurus square Pluto in Aquarius, Uranus enters Gemini 4/26 - Mercury in Aries square Jupiter in Cancer 4/28 - Venus in Gemini square the lunar nodes

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[elminx]

We've reached the big week of the month, when everything this week is leading towards something: the new moon in Aries, the Sun entering Taurus, and our major stellium between Mercury, Mars, and Saturn, which occurs at the end of this week and into next Monday. Overall, it's not going to feel good. We can blame this, as always, on Saturn.

We have to keep in mind that Saturn is at its fall in cardinal Aries because Aries is fast and demanding, while Saturn is a hard STOP.

That stop sign exists at the end of this week, the big flex all week long is to take your foot off the gas pedal BEFORE you need to slam on the brakes (or, worst case, run into that wall). It won't be easy; with the Sun, Mercury, and Mars in Aries, we are really feeling the manic growth energy of spring.

I'm not saying you shouldn't move this week; I'm encouraging you to slow down without riding the brakes. For some of us - especially those with strong Aries placements (and possibly even fire placements overall), this will be extremely challenging. There is always so much to do in the springtime.

There are a ton of piddly small aspects this week, but I'm not going to focus on each one of them - the end result is too big, and the outer planets just don't matter that much in this context.

Mercury enters Aries (Tuesday)

This is going to ramp up the intensity of this ascending conjunction fast. Mars entered Aries last week, and Saturn is already sitting there, waiting. Beware of thinking too fast (Mercury) or moving too fast (Mars) because Saturn is RIGHT THERE.

For the love of all of the gods: pace yourself.

You don't need to do it all right now. Besides, it will be much easier to accomplish next week after this stellium has begun to separate.

Sun conjunct Chiron 26° Aries (Thursday)

This has the feeling of a bruised ego, or perhaps the pains of doing too much, or perhaps the pains of not going enough. Chiron has been sitting in Aries for quite some time and was deeply involved in our total solar eclipse in Aries in 2024. Chiron will be tightly involved in a stellium with the Sun and Moon during the new moon the next day, which will echo the eclipse's energy without quite as much intensity.

Pain points may be activated, especially for those of you who have Chiron strongly indicated in your chart.

New Moon 27° Aries 7:52AM (EDT/UTC-4:00)

The new moon peaks early in the morning on Friday, which means if you're looking to work with this energy, you need to do so during that timeframe. Because this lunation occurs at the end of Aries, the moon will have entered Taurus by midday, completely ending this energy.

This is the best day we've had so far to set intentions for the new astrological year, as the Sun is now quite far from Saturn. Keep it simple and to the point, as that uses Aries energy to its fullest potential. One single candle burned over an intention paper is indicated here; 1 for the first astrological month of the year, and fire for Aries.

Stellium: Mercury, Mars, and Saturn 07° Aries (Sunday-Monday)

This is it, the big deal, the hard stop that I've been talking about all month long. Mars conjuncts Saturn on Sunday, and Mercury conjuncts Saturn and then Mars on Monday.

If you can't think, can't do, can't talk, can't write this weekend, know that you are right on time.

If you are forced to face the consequences of your past actions, this is likewise indicated.

We do not like to see Mars and Saturn meet, as they are our two malefic signs; it does not bode well for anyone. Does that mean something bad will happen to you? Obviously not. It's an opportunity. A checkpoint, if you will. How you personally feel about Martial and Saturnian energy will have a lot to do with how this shows up for you.

Saturn is a reminder to slow down and check yourself, but Mars in Aries is at its most driven and is singularly focused on forward movement and achievement. The thing is, Saturn outweights Mars by a lot. You can't get out of this by pushing through. You have to do the work, or you will be stuck in the quagmire.

We should be very thankful for Mercury's involvement, as they are a great negotiator. For this reason, I suspect Sunday will feel very challenging for many, but some of this may become clearer on Monday as Mercury overtakes these two signs. Being flexible will help a lot here, but when you are bending that much, it can be difficult not to tense all your muscles.

This is definitely breakup weather for a certain type of relationship - you know the type that's built entirely on adrenaline and fighting/making up.

We will get through this weekend, but it might not feel like it for a hot second in the middle. Things will level off a lot as we enter Taurus season.

Sun enters Taurus (Sunday)

This will probably pass unnoticed with our major stellium, but we enter the second astrological month of the year on Sunday when the Sun enters Taurus. Taurus season is all about enjoying springtime and embracing your own Venus nature.

[backlogbooks]

"In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the human being on top--the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of Creation--and the plants at the bottom. But in Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as "the younger brothers of Creation." We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn--we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They've been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out."

-Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer

[senhordiabe]

Working with Nature Spirits in Urban Areas

It is a personal belief that many parts of the occult community feature a sense of pastoral romanticism, identifying the witch with someone on the 'other side' - a person who rides the boundaries of the hedge representing one foot in the natural, untamed world and one in the civilized world of the village. Although this is historically true, where folk healers often made use of herbs that were accessible in their region and foraged, it is not altogether the same as the circumstances we live in now. There is some mentions of manufactured items, such as church candles which were stolen or farm goods such as a stolen potato to treat rheumatism - but it is undeniable that folk magic was based on the ingenuity and personal ability of the magician in relation to the environment they found themselves in.

Nature Spirits are not fully limited to just natural areas, and the increasing urbanization may result in new chaos egregores such as the spirits residing around train tracks, or spirits of electrical pylons and other areas of condensed electricity. One major person I know worked with a chaos egregore of nuclear material, of which certain glasses and similar items contain uranium. It is described by some that these spirits of non-natural elements are chaotic, but they undeniably fill a possible role in our spiritual work.

Spirits of Various Areas

We have the presence of the Geni Loci in folklore, spirits of place - and this is most noted in contemporary witchcraft in relation to places like crossroads, houses and other distinct landmarks such as cemeteries and churches. These spirits are often invoked when handling substances from that area such as dirt, and prove to be a staple when it comes to magic of all forms. Other spirits include:

The Spirit of Organizations represented by the places of work or corporations which may be used in job related affairs

The Spirit of Banks which may be invoked for good fortune in financial affairs

The Spirits of Universities or Institutions of Education that may be invoked for aid in learning and exams

The Spirits of Courts and Court Houses that may be invoked in affairs relating to the averting or bending of the Law.

The Spirits of Fertile Gardens which may be worked with in areas of growth, abundance and development.

The Spirits of Dry or Infertile Land which may be used to dry up curses, enemies and the like.

The Spirits of Red Dirt which are found when areas of sand are oxidized and have a red colour, useful for protection and curse breaking as well as causing conflicts.

The Spirits of Party Houses which may be invoked for acts of socializing and having a hold over others

The Spirits of Bathhouses and Cruising Areas which may be invoked for attracting a partner or sex.

These are just a few of the found spirits that one might get, but others also include

Spirits of Busy Roads which may be used to disperse conditions and send people away.

Spirits of Abandoned Buildings which can take many shapes and forms.

[vitterdotter]

I despise despise despise the idea of "do christians know that easter is basically a fully moon ritual?" or "nonwitches literally practice candle magic when they blow out birthday candles!!" or etc. tracking the passage of time with nature isn't unique to modern witchcraft, nor is seeing the world as inherently whimsical. not all magic is witchcraft, and pieces of the world that are significant to witchcraft are not solely significant to witchcraft

[vitterdotter]

no, I don't believe the norse gods are inherently "good". I think they can be as multifaceted as we are, and the idea that gods must be perfect and good feels...Idk...like maybe...the influence of a major world religion...

[salixsociety]

"Mundane Before Magic!"

Performative Rationalism, Coloniality and Epistemicide

On the pitfalls of this false dichotomy, how the insistence on it harms us all, and how we can outgrow it.

'Mundane before magic' is one of a few concepts that are seen as core feats of reasoning within the contemporary witchcraft / neopagan space. Not adhering to it is almost unheard of, and sometimes even seen as a moral or intellectual failing. But where did the notion of 'mundane before magical' come from? Why is it enforced so aggressively in the community when it's not historic or culturally universal?

[A/N:] I reblogged a post a few days ago by cunningqueer that said: "btw it's okay to believe magic is real. You don't need to try to logic your way through or obscure science and "spicy psychology" the magic into "rational" things," and I could not agree more. A lot of this post is rephrasing my original reblog, but I'm adding to it and organizing it better to make my stance easier to understand. Before I get started, since this is such a hot button topic, please read the entire post before forming an opinion. I will cover and counter several of the arguments that people normally use to try to argue against the overarching point I'm making here, and for that reason I won't be responding to replies to this post that try to make the same arguments I already countered without engaging with my point! If you accuse me of being anti-science, you lack reading comprehension. Thank you!

What Constitutes 'Mundane'?

The statement 'mundane over magic' has two core features:

1. the implication that there is a hard and fast divide between the mundane and the magical; 2. the implication that the mundane takes priority over the magical.

In the contemporary spiritual community, broadly, the 'mundane' is accepted as all that which is attested to by science and could be proven empirically. Generally speaking, in casual conversation, it's either about things you can perceive with your five senses, or things to do with medicine; but the broader sentiment remains: it prioritizes all that which the social consensus believes to be in accordance with scientific reasoning and common sense.

This is a big feature in the spiritual community. Within the contemporary witchcraft / pagan space specifically, I would venture a solid 70% of people fall victim to the fallacious idea that science (as we know it now) is The One Objective Truth, and spirituality is secondary to it. Because people believe that western science is the objective truth that the world operates on, they also are forced to believe that the default state of things is inherently nonspiritual. The conclusion that has to be drawn from the assumption that western science is objective fact, is that the world possesses a fundamental, non-spiritual truth - and people do believe that, consciously or subconsciously. For many, that preconceived notion serves as the axis they build their entire practice around.

There is something to be said, here, before I continue, about the fact that science itself doesn't acknowledge itself as objective. It does strive to be objective - insert acknowledgment of the heated debate around the concept of objectivity - but science and scientists are broadly self-aware enough to acknowledge that it often can't be. Even though the philosophical underpinnings of science believe in the possibility of objective truth, and the merits of pursuing it, not even each individual scientist believes in objective truth.

“The admiration of science among the general public and the authority science enjoys in public life stems to a large extent from the view that science is objective or at least more objective than other modes of inquiry.” -- Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy

"In everyday discourse, there is a continuing tendency to characterize the objective as that which speaks for itself without the interference of human perception, interpretation, judgment, and so on." -- Prof. Melanie Feinberg, MIT Press Reader

Objectivity is, paradoxically, somewhat subjective. Nevertheless, many people in the community - even those who pride themselves on never forsaking science in favor of spirituality - still hold to the idea that there is objective objectivity to science, and let that color their understanding of spirituality, expecting people to prioritize this feigned objectivity over their own belief systems, indiscriminately at that.

Now let absolutely nobody accuse me of being anti-science, or of believing that science should never take precedent over spirituality, but we will get to all of that momentarily.

The Coloniality of Mundane > Magic

An unfortunate side effect of accepting western science as The One True Truth, is that people treat the (historic) cultures they are taking beliefs from as being intellectually inferior to science. This makes sense and is an entirely natural progression of events, because much like if you believe that there is One True God to whom all other gods are subject, if you believe that there is One True Truth, any other way of experiencing, rationalizing, understanding or recording existence is inherently inferior to that Truth. In that sense, prioritizing the 'mundane' over the magical often comes in the form of treating historic or cultural belief systems and practices as completely secondary. As more of a fun expression or a hobby, without much faith in it, that deserves to be tossed to the wind as primitive, silly or unintelligent as soon as it comes time to believe that it is capable of actually doing something for the practitioner. It's certainly one of the greatest pitfalls of modern conventional practice, and the reason that since the pandemic 'witchcraft' has behaved more as a severely oversaturated trend than as an actual rising belief system.

The expectation that all spiritualities, if intellectually and morally valid, will conform to western scientific values first no matter what, is colonial. For several reasons.

One of them is that modern popular 'witchcraft' is, of course, based primarily on European folk magic traditions, with influences from the (still very cultural) third wave of Western Esotericism. Almost every single one of the traditions that Wicca took and spat out as what we now know as 'witchcraft' are or were animistic traditions in origin.

"Some scholars see the classification of 'ritual' vs. 'profane' [as] a product of Western Enlightenment thinking, an effort to purify and simplify the past. [...] In an analogous vein, it has been pointed out that the Old Norse language has no word for religion, and that Norse-speakers used the term 'siðr' -- 'custom' or 'tradition'." -- Marianne Hem Eriksen, Of Bodies and Buildings: Rituals in the Halls of the Vikings

'Mundane over magical' or any other iteration of the idea that something can be entirely magic-less is fundamentally in opposition with the philosophy that 'witchcraft' already appropriates from, and applying that mindset to it and forcing it to conform to that rationalist idea is ultimately just perpetuating that already extant appropriation.

Further, it is very effectively ethnocidal, because the reason this dichotomy and ranking of philosophical validity ever took hold at all is that people are trying to force spiritualities to conform to what they view as a superior, rationalist truth. It doesn't matter who you are, what your culture is, how elaborate or successful your culture's belief systems are: if you want to be intellectually valid, moral, and generally accepted by the community, you must accept western science as the objective truth, and your culture's understanding of the world as secondary to it.

It's flat-out anti-indigenous, cultivating an ingrained hatred of cosmologies and belief systems that the west views as 'primitive' - which is ironic during a time when science is actually slowly coming around to acknowledging that animistic philosophy was severely ahead of western science on many fronts. If you're forced to think that the only way to rationally or sensically engage with magic is through constantly questioning it according to post-Christian, post-colonial, post-rationalist views, you will do the same to every other religion: basing its validity on how well you can make it work with western understandings of 'truth'. It's extremely destructive.

You must accept the western truth, the white truth, as presented to us by the selfsame scientific community that used to swear high and low that racial theory is scientific fact. Which I don't say to claim that science is pointless or you shouldn't believe in it, but rather to illustrate that western science is and has been deeply influenced and colored by white supremacy, and by the white lived experience in general. It's painted as not only a more intelligent way of thinking, but also as morally better - if you actually believe in magic's ability to do things of significance for you, you're crazy and in need of mental help (see the whole "spiritual psychosis" issue), and all those who constantly hold others to this expectation of prioritizing the Ultimate, Objective Truth of Euro-Western Science™ are saving them from falling into a trap of trope-y craziness.

The aggression with which people will perpetuate this notion is particularly shocking. If you state that you don't believe in the dichotomy between mundane and magic, or refuse to agree with people who are trying to force it upon yourself or others, it's almost certain a fight will break out and you, the opponent, the intellectual and moral enemy, will be accused of endangering others by allowing them to make their own judgments. The only thing that can save you or anyone else that is spiritually inclined from falling into fully fledged, mass delusion, is the white man's science. Let the white man's science save you from your culture's mass delusion. Which leads me to my next point:

Fearmongering and Cult Tactics

It has always been crazy to me to think that it is genuinely believed by an overwhelming majority of the community that if you do not consistently harp on 'mundane over magical', people are going to get hurt. That, to me, indicates not an issue with magic, but a much greater problem: a lack of critical reasoning. I do not want to believe it is true that if you stop telling everyone 'mundane before magical' at every turn, they will start dying en masse. If it were true that every single person in this community would promptly stop doing basic house maintenance, examining their health, and taking their car to the mechanic, that's not a magic problem, it's an awareness problem. It would genuinely suggest that every single person in this community is fundamentally incapable of basic feats of reasoning.

I will admit that my blog is oriented heavily around critical theory, and that I often criticize the broader magical community for not engaging with critical theory enough, not thinking independently enough, so on and so forth. But the solution to a large-scale lack of critical reasoning and discernment in the community is not to destroy intangible heritage to make it easier to commodify. The solution is education. The solution is to engage people in dialogue about their views, to educate people about their belief system's philosophy and cosmology, to teach people literacy and problem-solving skills. We are not a community of four year olds. This is a community literally oriented around philosophy, faith, cosmology, and learning. We owe it to ourselves and the cultures we take from, historic or not, to cultivate an expectation of critical thinking skills within it. If you are or know someone who would genuinely let themselves die of pneumonia if no one told them to maybe go visit a doctor on top of their cleansing spell, you have bigger god damn fish to fry.

The entire notion, somehow, manages to both force the entire spiritual community to contort itself to be more suitable to "beginners" (nevermind the erasure), and put down beginners horrifically, unilaterally treating them as people who need their hands held through every feat of basic reasoning, problem solving, and self preservation, lest they prove themselves mortally stupid. It's insulting, it's impractical, and most of all just adds to the already very severe problem of critical thinking being underrepresented and undervalued.

There's also something to be said about how 'mundane before magic' is a gateway drug into cult mentalities, because it gives you leeway to assume that there is an external authority out there that can dictate what is and is not magic. First it's the disembodied voice of what you believe to be 'science', but if you've already fallen trap to this kind of shallow pop culture belief, and no one is teaching you the critical thinking skills that this very thing gets in the way of, nothing is stopping you from falling for other, equally common fallacious beliefs - and it is unfortunately the case that the contemporary witchcraft community is oriented around authoritarianism, legitimacy grabs, and validation farming.

How Mundane > Magic Sabotages Your Practice

Maybe the most immediately depressing way in which it's harmful is the way it sabotages the success of one's own practice. Every day I see people asking for tips to connect to their practice better, saying they need to take breaks from their practice, asking for tips on how to get back into it, so on and so forth. The reason that people fail to connect with their practice is the idea that 'mundane before magical' will save them. If you believe that the default state of the world is complete mundanity and non-magic, magic cannot exist. In that universe, magic is nothing but a narrative tool. Mundane before magical suggests that only magical problems warrant magical solutions, but what realm does that leave for magic to occupy? Suddenly magic is only valuable in the sphere of your imagination.

Like I mentioned earlier, the historic attitude towards magic is not that magic is an exception to some universal rule, and seeing it that way is doing an injustice to extremely complex cosmologies and philosophical systems that, often, span back all the way to the beginning of human existence. Despite western science painting these traditions as primitive and unintelligent, they have highly developed beliefs about how magic operates, and their beliefs are not for no reason. If you take no interest in pursuing that understanding or that lens, magic and spirituality may just not be for you. There is a reason that every tradition that has its own magic system that I know of, and certainly every tradition that influenced contemporary witchcraft, believes that magic is a fundamental building block of the universe. And that doesn't mean that all historic peoples were engaging in shared delusions that had no solid backing, contrary to what 'mundane before magical' suggests - rather, they had an extremely complex (and successful) philosophical underpinning that informed their every belief and action. And, perhaps also contrary to common belief: their systems were adaptable and constantly subject to change based on what did and did not work. Our modern science finds its roots in pagan philosophy, let none of us forget.

If nothing has magical significance unless you can somehow deduct with rationalist reasoning that it can’t have been anything BUT magic, you will be so deeply removed from everything around you. Suddenly something can only be spiritual when it has inexplicability and intangibility. Suddenly the nettles by your door are no longer warding allies, suddenly your coworker’s “bless you” to a sneeze no longer protects you from harm, suddenly your mother’s love is no longer a divine thing. Suddenly your gods’ love can only reach you in highly specific ways, and you can’t smell it on the wind anymore. Or, god forbid, if your only experience of religion has been nothing but pop paganism, you never got a taste of that perfect symbiosis in the first place. The glory of faith is that it gives color to a blip of existence. The faiths of our ancestors were built by and for the world that shaped us, and our society is built entirely on the foundation of their beliefs. It is that fact that makes it that I can look to the earth and know every single plant and particulate of soil and cloud and trickle of water is working alongside me to be able to have this experience, and every word and thought I produce is colored by my ancestors’ knowledge of that cooperation. Living your life under the assumption that everything you can touch and understand is dead and meaningless, and magic can only come to you in brief unwitting glimpses into another world, guts all of that. The faith has lost all meaning, and you are waiting for it to find another way to make some.

Ultimately, a successful magical practice will always require you to do this deconstruction. You must be willing to challenge your own beliefs and preconceived notions, and you must be willing to question why the people of the cultures you take from believed what they believed, or you are not only getting in your own way in terms of connection and magical success, but also blatantly appropriating from a historic culture you literally cannot be part of. The dead deserve autonomy, historic cultures deserve autonomy. They deserve respect and honor, and their beliefs to not be skewed and ridiculed for the purposes of the appropriator. Nevermind how the appropriation of historic cultures affects the (often still living) descendant cultures.

Of course it is difficult to feel connected to a practice that can only be special and meaningful in certain moments, that can only be perceived and engaged with in small, unexpected blinks. It's hard to feel connected to magic when magic is something you have to make happen all the time rather than feeling it flow through you and you through it as you go about your life. The beauty of the belief systems that neopaganism and contemporary witchcraft are built upon is that they made everything have the meaning of magical moments, all the time. You shouldn't have to go out of your way to make 'mundane' things magical when you care enough about magic as a concept to seek it out and make it part of your identity like a witch or any other kind of practitioner does. So how do you remedy this problem? How do you integrate magic and mundane like these cultures did for thousands of years prior, without sacrificing the value of modern science, without putting yourself in harm's way, and without falling into delusion?

Integrating Magic and Mundane (without falling into dangerous habits)

I do think I should start this off by saying that if you experience genuine, unadulterated belief in magic as a force in the universe (rather than as something that can only be true if filtered through the lens of conventional science) as delusional, magic might not be for you. Or, at the very least, some time spent reflecting on the other points in this post may be in order. I'm not saying that you cannot believe in science, or that it shouldn't be allowed to filter it through the lens of science, but you have to do that in a conscious way. You must understand the nature of the belief without the interference of western science before you have the right to change it for your own purposes and force it to conform to the beliefs of the oppressor's. That's the nature of decolonization, no matter who you are or where your focus lies.

That said, having a functional relationship with spirituality isn't about believing less, it's about a few core skills that you use within the context of your faith, to make reasonable decisions. These skills are ones you should have regardless, whether you practice any form of magic or religion or not: critical thinking, problem solving skills, crisis management, knowing when to defer to others, so on and so forth.

We should probably tackle the science issue first: and similarly, the answer to balancing science and spirituality isn't to believe in spirituality less. After all, were you to pluck some random from the neolithic age and show them an X-ray machine, they wouldn't see the supposedly fundamental difference between that and magic that we are propagandized into seeing. They would see highly advanced magic, because there is no fundamental difference. Science has more in common with spirituality than most anything else. It is a highly developed belief system, with its own methodologies, cosmology, and specialists. It has the same deep impact on people, giving them something to believe in and be passionate about, a way to understand the world. It has its own pitfalls and flaws, it makes mistakes, and we work together to amend them. We defer to people who know more about it, who spent huge parts of their lives in traditional and institutionalized forms of education, where the knowledge of their occupational ancestors was imparted onto them, so they could improve and perpetuate it and continue to serve their community with it. What sets science apart from other kinds of magic isn't that science is more intelligent, more reasonable, or more objective, but rather that science is an extremely advanced system, in some ways far more advanced than any other predecessor. But that advancement didn't come without sacrifices, like ecological destruction and energy costs, nor did it come without extreme pitfalls and it getting way the fuck ahead of itself. We can learn from ancient belief systems and apply their wisdoms into science just as we can incorporate science and its successes into our belief systems, with respect and honor to both.

Some of the greatest blunders of science could have been prevented if aspects of ancient belief had been taken into account, and conversely we owe many of our most impressive skills to scientific advancement. We can honor and enjoy both, and make progress both personally and interpersonally doing so. The wonderful thing about both magic and science falling into the same anthropological category, i.e. both being so adjacent to the definition of 'religion', is that that means they can be syncretized. Belief in one does not need to come in the form of disregarding the other as stupid and primitive, they can coexist beautifully.

I won't harp on the ways they can be syncretized much further, because we would be here all day and that'd be better reserved for a different post. And, ultimately, how you end up syncretizing them is up to you and entirely determined by the values of your belief system and your personal values. But I will talk about how treating them as complementary rather than oppositional can benefit you hugely. For one, when you accept that science is just one of many belief systems, and only happens to be one of the most advanced ones on earth, it becomes a lot easier to not feel like you're sacrificing your faith in magic when you go see a doctor. If I were to break my leg, I wouldn't go to the ER because I think a broken leg is just too severe for magic to work on, I would go to the ER because western science knows way more about broken legs through their framework than I do through mine. Similarly, my car wasn't built by dwarves, my car was built by engineers. I shouldn't expect that problems located within the domain of the engineer, dwarves will be able to solve - but I can still pray for my safety, or employ a spirit to help me keep things running on the way to the mechanic. Conversely, there are problems and situations that only fall within the domain of my belief system, like elf shot, or problems and situations that could be resolved with both, like the common cold. What, other than disbelief in magic to begin with, would stop me from happily attempting to solve those problems with magic? And if that doesn't work, considering other solutions?

I personally believe that any belief system, if given enough time to develop itself and enough resources to make use of, could eventually in theory be as successful as western science, or even moreso - and look completely different. (Highly recommend Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky if you're interested in this concept). And, building off of that, I truly believe that we as a global society could improve by leaps and bounds if we credited and explored the countless other ways of acquiring knowledge that the human mind has devised. It is so important to understand the context that science exists in, to understand that the only reason science is so very far ahead of any other system of medicine or understanding is because science is, in a way, synonymous with whiteness. Science is only as prevalent as it is because it was built upon the plain, homogenized canvas created by Christian imperialism, and then European colonialism. Those two things eradicated so many belief systems, almost altogether, and then replaced it with the science that sprang from the newly homogenized Europe.

There is also the issue of identifying signs, another common one that people often use the 'mundane before magic' rhetoric on to try to solve the issue of what is a sign and what isn't. But does that actually work? No, it doesn't. How many times does something need to happen before it's magic? Seeing one crow is normal, but seeing three on the same day isn't? Watching a flame flicker one time means nothing, but watching it flicker nine is a sign? Maybe in some cases that works, but there is certainly a better approach.

When you come into spirituality later in life it is inevitable that you will reach a point of curiosity and familiarity where you start questioning what are signs and what isn't. And, because our lives are so high-stress, maybe it's even natural that we really hone in on that and somewhat obsessively look for signs, be that as proof that magic exists or whatever else. The way to cope with that also isn't to believe less or prioritize some feigned idea of non-magicness over the potential for magic, it's about knowing when to redirect your curiosity elsewhere, when to not obsess over something, when it's pointless to pursue those lines of thinking, etc. Thinking that just because something must logically have spiritual significance, that means it is something for you to know and for you to be concerned about, or something that has any bearing on you at all just because you are perceiving it, is often a form of self-centeredness or anthropocentrism. And it is beneficial to tackle, it should be tackled! Spirituality shouldn’t all be about “does this have relevance to me” in the form of questioning whether things are signs and portents and omens and messages from the gods. Sometimes it should be about questioning the place of these things in the greater picture, beyond yourself, beyond your life.

In that vein I think people should really be open to the idea that it can simultaneously be true that everything is magic, but not everything has spiritual significance to you, specifically. I really truly believe that my culture's historic animism teaches, if you read into it, that anything can portent anything. The nature of 'wyrd' is that everything happens because of each other, and everything happens in response to and accordance with everything else. I fully believe that the gods, in their divine wisdom, can look at a bird and divine truly anything about the day ahead, or look at the landscape and do the same thing. Everything happens in response to everything else, all the time, everything is interconnected - a statement that most pop pagans would agree with - and so of course if you were only brilliant and learned enough, if you could only see enough of 'wyrd', you would be able to divine anything about anything by looking at something random. This can be true, and even something you strive towards in your quest to become better at magic, but sometimes it really is just none of your concern.

It's good to learn to ask yourself when looking for signs or interpreting them is actually beneficial. It's also good to ask yourself how looking for signs affects your mental health, and to consider whether understanding more about the nature of signs could perhaps solve any problems surrounding them in your life or practice, or if choosing not to interpret any signs unless they spit you in the face might be a better option. Because that is an option, and one I can actually personally recommend! If the signs are that significant, they'll become impossible to ignore. And other than that, it's perfectly reasonable to just not look for any, and use planned divination to answer your questions and inklings.

Of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Learning how to integrate magical and mundane is a long process, maybe one that goes on forever! We grow up in a world that conditions us from birth to adhere to certain values. Some are well known to be harmful, like racism, misogyny, xenophobia; others are not as sensitive in the common consensus, like latent Christianity (and especially evangelism), eurocentrism, and indeed this notion of scientific superiority. Unpacking your biases towards science and against magic is one of many processes within the broader act of decolonizing your practice. Learning how to successfully integrate the magical and the mundane into each other and have that more holistic, animistic worldview is a long process for everybody, but a very rewarding one, and a necessary one if you intend to practice the faith of a culture whose core beliefs aren't anchored in western science. And, in the process of decolonizing your practice, you retain the right to incorporate science into your practice however you want, and however suits you best - so long as you have the awareness of historic and cultural context and honor it, and so long as you do not force your cosmological beliefs onto other people.

Conclusion

It is frustrating and isolating to cultural practitioners, not just me but many people like me, to watch magic be written off as silly, childlike, fantastical and primitive, even by other practitioners. Especially when often it is us cultural practitioners who acknowledge before anything else that science is the single most successfully developed belief system on earth.

Insisting on 'mundane > magic' as some universal cosmological truth is not only colonial, actively depreciating the value and validity of every culture whose belief system doesn't orient around western science, but also deeply unproductive, sabotaging practices the world over and furthering appropriation and shallow pop cosmology that serves no purpose. It makes people afraid to engage with magic for what it is, and ingrains the idea in people's minds that critical thinking is either not necessary, or synonymous with blindly accepting false statements about the nature and truthfulness of science.

There is a whole world out there, full of harmless, brilliant, powerful magic for you to explore. The world is waiting for you to come back to the same depth of connection that your ancestors, no matter who you are, once felt. Most contemporary pagans, no matter how deeply entrenched in crappy pop cosmology, would agree with the sentiment that 'everything is connected'. I challenge you, reader, to go find that interconnection. You are not done learning about it, no matter how much you think you already know about it. The wisdom of the gods is there waiting for you in this life or beyond. You, too, can plant your feet on the ground - any ground - and feel the earth's rhythms in tandem with your own.

Bibliography:

Reiss, Julian and Jan Sprenger, "Scientific Objectivity", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)

Feinberg, Melanie, "The Myth of Objective Data," The MIT Press Reader (2023).

Hem Eriksen, Marianne, "Of Bodies and Buildings: Rituals in the Halls of the Vikings," The Norse Sorceress (2021), Leszek Gardela, Sophie Bønding, Peter Pentz (ed.)

Further reading:

Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky

A Sand County Almanac - Aldo Leopold

The Certainty of the World of Spirits (to which is added the Wonders of the Invisible World by Cotton Mather) - Richard Baxter

Elves in Anglo-Saxon England - Alaric Hall

Ecopsychology - Theodore Roszak, Mary E. Gomes, Allan D. Kanner (ed.)

The Living Fairy Faith - Evans-Wentz

The Troll Inside you - Ármann Jakobsson

[salixsociety]

[ginandjack]

Random thoughts on the folkloric witch at the moment

The witch in European countries, and my knowledge is specifically around Iberia, is Other. I don't just mean ostracized, but non human. Monstrous, numinous, the same as devils and dark spirits. Shapeshifters and witches are not people. To be accused of witchcraft is to be accused of doing magic taught to you by the spirits you're cavorting with. A bruja is a folkloric thing, and you, at best, are a brujita, a little bit of a witch, a feitzeria, a worker of fetishes. And while the witch movement of the 1940's to now has changed how we interact with that word. I know folks from as recent as the 1960's who talk about witches as monsters who ride winds, stomp on your roof to warn you they are coming to ask you to join them or else ride you like a beast.

So things like Witchblood, was not just a spiritual mark, but the tool by which you could be persecuted based on your matrilinial line.

So spiritual traditions that focus on your spirit relationships, or a fetch mate, and tell you that the process changes you, makes you like them, thats the process of becoming brujita.

When there are modern traditions that talk about Witch as Other, and if they only mean ostracized, or differently interested, and not spiritualy other? It's hollow.

The traditions that talk about how if you do your craft long enough, you stop doing active magic and simply are magic? That's brujita. That's becoming.

To embrace the beings who are outside the realm of the baptism font and the church bells is what makes a witch, even if they witch goes to Sunday mass and knows all of their prayers.

Is this specifically a "trad ctaft" thing? No. But there are absolutely elements of this in trad craft. Is it specifically and only in relation to Christianity? No, but we can't deny hundreds of years of lore changing and growing either. Is this anti modern witch movement? No, but it informs my opinions in a way that some folks who are only familiar with British Trad Wicca based modern witchcraft might not.

Belieiving in spirits, the ability to effect the world with magic, cast spells, to leave the body, but to not believe this aspect of it, to refuse to align yourself with the mosntrous and the bogeyman, to dismiss this part as old fashioned and silly superstition? I don't know; it feels disingenuous.

To define as a witch is to define as, at least in part, a monster, a spirit being, fairy, folkloric.