Witch Crafting: A Spiritual Guide to Making Magic

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She argued that those persecuted as witches were not vicious, satanic heretics, but instead salt of the earth practitioners of the Old Religion. When discussing witch-hunting stereotypes and victims of those stereotypes, I do not capitalize witch or pagan, because the accused do not self-identify with those terms. Such conflations ultimately make it difficult to determine if there is such a thing as a concept of witchcraft at all, outside of its original early modern European context. As new religious movements have grown, the relationship between anthropology and magic has further entwined, with scholars, including me, conducting ethnographic work with Witches and other Pagans.

Concerns about Witch as a racist label have driven efforts to limit its use within scholarship to Wicca and other contemporary Paganisms. These religions have had to fight for legitimacy and to resist racist projections of primitivism as well as cultural appropriation by white spiritual seekers. While both Murray’s witch-cult theory and Gardner’s ancient claims have since been disproven, Wicca nonetheless represents an impressive case of religious inspiration based in anthropology. When I think of a traditional Grimoire or Book of Shadows, I think of beautiful illustrations alongside thorough information; and that is what I thought of when I created Magick.Heidi Breuer traverses both the medieval and early modern periods and considers the way in which the representation of literary witches interacted with the culture at large, ultimately arguing that a series of economic crises in the fourteenth century created a labour shortage met by women. The words facilitate separating out participants from the everyday world together and make collaborative magical work possible. Although Gardner remained unconscious, at least in his public statements, of having used anthropology to shape his religious practice, his explicit use of The Golden Bough to legitimate his movement served as precedent for other Pagans to use anthropological material as spiritually inspirational.

I have never used item creation feats or done any crafting with any of my characters, past, or present. Keep in mind that anyone can view public collections—they may also appear in recommendations and other places. Ivory’s experience and expertise emphasize that words like magic and witchcraft change moral meaning as they move across social contexts. The witch figure serves a similar function in modern American culture because late-industrial capitalism challenges gender conventions in similar ways as the economic crises of the medieval period. When you say that my tradition is not Witchcraft, when you say that I am not a Witch, you delegitimize me where being a Witch is a good thing.Since this is a love and attraction bath, it’s a good time for some self love, you may wash your hair, brush your teeth, shave, exfoliate etc.

As I was outlining these power dynamics in a lecture for my “Witchcraft, Magic, and the Occult” course, a student furrowed her brow and raised her hand.We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. At a moment when sexism, racism, and poverty were being analyzed as produced by social systems, institutional religion once again rose to public consciousness as at least partly responsible for those inequalities, and activist communities encouraged each other to stop supporting oppressive religions. Place the paper herbs and rose quartz into a cute lil sachet, seal the spell by making a circle with the candle under the sachet, and then whack that bad boy into your pocket. The empty chair sticker is so apt, as tarot has been implying that there is an empty chair coming up that I am meant to fill.

Contemporary Paganism is a new religious movement that champions magic as both group worship and personal empowerment. Ivory is Black, transfemme, and embraces through her mother and grandmother lineage in the Trinidadian-Yoruba tradition of Ifá.Etsy’s 100% renewable electricity commitment includes the electricity used by the data centers that host Etsy. In contexts where Witch identity is valued, continuing to insist that the label is inappropriate for BIPOC folks sours from allyship into whitewashing. A predominantly white, Western movement, contemporary Paganism is a product of, a backlash against, and a popular audience for, anthropological ideas about magic. Keep in mind that anyone can view public collections - they may also appear in recommendations and other places.