Book Review: Magic for the Resistance by Michael M. Hughes
I was given an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review
I went into this book ready to love it. I was so excited to see the flip side of the conservative Christian monopoly on spirituality in politics. But I’ll be honest, I have really mixed feelings about this book.
I’ll start with the good, since I do think that overall it’s a worthy and valuable addition to the published literature on contemporary magic. Hughes includes a great overview of magic as a tool of the oppressed throughout the book. The very beginning of the book consists of a survey of political movements, social uprisings, and protests that have been key aspects of witchcraft across cultures and throughout history. This is very much an overview, and doesn’t go into great depth or detail on any of them, but is an excellent jumping off point for readers to do their own research on any of the movements that are personally resonant. He also does a great job emphasizing the use of magic as something that can both bolster feelings of personal power -- especially in times where we may feel powerless -- and also to bring people together to enact change on both magical and mundane levels. In this way, the book is fantastic. Hughes uses his own example of the Spell to Bind Donald Trump which you may remember from the time right around or after the inauguration. I didn’t recognize Hughes’ name when I got this book, but I certainly remembered the spell that included a stubby orange candle and the Tower card! This spell was developed for Hughes and his personal circle to feel that they could participate in a form of resistance, but it quickly went viral and witches across the country participated, combining it with demonstrations in front of Trump Tower and leaving piles of baby carrots and orange candles in their wake. The hashtag #magicresistance took off on social media, and even those who did the ritual because they thought it was funny and not because they believed in its power were reinvigorated and encouraged anew to become or remain politically active. Incidentally, Hughes also reminds us of the power of humor, both to keep perspective and to make our movements feel accessible and relate-able.
To be honest, though, I really think the major contribution that Hughes makes with this book is his advice on how to plan demonstrations, protests, and other political actions. His advice on humor, as stated above, is intermixed with logistic suggestions for meeting up with other activist witches and planning actions as well as ideas for guerrilla magic - such as leaving talismans of protection at women’s clinics, leaving Justice tarot cards with the names of unjustly convicted activists or victims of police violence on the courthouse steps, etc. He does include a section of pre-written spells and ritual ideas, but after the rest of the book they felt kind of superfluous to me. However, perhaps other readers will appreciate the templates he offers, and will be inspired to enact them or similar spells on their own. Even if his specific spells don’t resonate with me, though, I have not seen a Black Lives Matter spell before, or a Hex the NRA response to the ‘thoughts and prayers’ offered by politicians. They were powerful simply by virtue of existing in print, and for that I am grateful.
Additionally, I particularly appreciated Hughes’ discussion of using magical means to intervene in individual actions via curses, hexes, or binding spells. His take is that if you are willing to take mundane action to reach the same result, then using magic is not unethical. That is, if you are willing to write a letter trying to get a politician to change their stance on an issue, why would you be averse to using magical means to do the same? If you are willing to get a restraining order to keep someone from stalking another person, why would you not also enact a binding spell - essentially a magical restraining order - to add some oomph to the process? He does not advocate cursing willy-nilly or binding someone when a conversation could do the trick, but he is pragmatic and views magic as just one more tool for us to keep in our tool box.
If you’ve read my other book reviews, you can probably guess what my first critique is going to be. Cultural appropriation is a huge problem in magical and pagan communities across the country (and probably the world, but I’m most familiar with the U.S.), and this book is no different. I don’t know what kind of mentoring, training, or initiation Hughes may have undergone, and I certainly don’t want to position myself as any sort of gatekeeper, but I do know that this is a white man offering ideas on how to make mojo bags in the vein of Hoodoo and Conjure traditions (conjure, rootwork, etc, come up frequently in the book); he regularly references Qabbalistic magic (maybe he’s Jewish, but he definitely writes about it in a way that feels like he’s dabbling), and his rituals often use components of or reference traditions with little to no background on why you might use these methods, in what contexts they are or are not appropriate, etc. I was able to pull the useful pieces out of the book and gloss over the pieces that felt inappropriate, but for the most part I am not part of the groups that he is sampling from. If I were, I may have a harder time ignoring it or feeling like the rest of the book was worth it. Mostly, it felt somewhat hypocritical to uncritically sample from closed or initiatory traditions-- or even traditions that may not be closed but are associated with specific, historically oppressed populations-- in a book on social justice.
My other critique is maybe a little picky, but while individual sections were well written, the flow of the book seemed odd at points. We switched back and forth from a history lesson to a discussion of magic that felt at least at the 201 level back to a 101 lesson on altar set up and how to cast a circle then a discussion of street activism. I appreciate that the book is geared toward a variety of experience levels and abilities, but it felt like perhaps it could have been organized better. Guidelines on altar set up, how to do basic magical actions like casting a circle, etc, could have been included in an appendix along with the individual spells. That may have contributed to a better flow overall, and left more space for a sustained discussion of the political implications of what magical tradition you choose to work with and why, or even just how to match your ritual to your action to your intended political outcome.
In any case, I do think this book is worth reading, especially for those new to activism of any kind, magical or mundane. With that said, I am unlikely to buy it or keep it as a reference, since my favorite parts are the broad ideas rather than the specific spells that I might need to review before performing. Overall I give it 3/5 stars.
