{"id":23945,"date":"2021-10-31T03:00:59","date_gmt":"2021-10-31T09:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?p=23945"},"modified":"2021-10-30T23:27:17","modified_gmt":"2021-10-31T05:27:17","slug":"season-of-the-witch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2021\/10\/season-of-the-witch.html","title":{"rendered":"Season of the Witch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

October is the month when we see more fictional witches on TV and more real witches in the news. The news pieces tend to be well-meaning but weak, as with the article from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation I wrote about earlier this month<\/a>. I long for the day when a Pagan celebrating Samhain will be no more \u2013 and no less \u2013 newsworthy than a Christian celebrating Easter.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019re a long way from that day. And while I generally agree that any publicity is good publicity, most of these \u201cmeet the Pagans\u201d articles leave me disappointed.<\/p>\n

Last week I saw two articles in major U.S. newspapers that were anything but disappointing. And they came at a time when it feels like everything is going in the wrong direction, that the people who want to move the country and the world back to 1950 are winning and can\u2019t be stopped.<\/p>\n

These articles tell a very different story. And that gives me hope.<\/p>\n

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Inside the life of a teenage witch<\/h2>\n

If there\u2019s a current trend in the world of Paganism and witchcraft (especially witchcraft) it\u2019s the young women who have gathered huge followings on social media talking about their practices. Some older folks don\u2019t much like this<\/a>, but I follow a few of the young witches and occultists on Twitter and have found them to be very good entry points for people looking to get started.<\/p>\n

Last week one of them was featured in a big way.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/em>, the fourth largest newspaper in the United States (and a paper with a national distribution) had this article From spellcasting to podcasting: Inside the life of a teenage witch<\/a> by Michelle Boorstein, with photos by Ilana Panich-Linsman. I encourage to you read it: it\u2019s respectful, descriptive, and informative \u2013 and unlike many WaPo articles, it\u2019s not behind a paywall.<\/p>\n

It features Viv Bennett (Continuousd3ath<\/a> on Twitter), an 18-year-old witch from Austin. I\u2019ve followed Viv on Twitter for some time \u2013 we\u2019ve had a few exchanges. I knew they were young \u2013 I had no idea they were that young. I was a mature 18-year-old, but there\u2019s no way I could have done then what Viv is doing now.<\/p>\n

Whatever you think of witchcraft and magic (and I think quite a bit about it<\/a>) Viv\u2019s closing comment is clearly true.<\/p>\n

For young people, the boom in witchcraft allows you to change your circumstance, versus that feeling of being helpless. Where you\u2019re relying on some outside source. Look at the political unrest, prices rising, covid \u2014 magic helps you get through it. It gives you a sense of stability, to ground yourself, and to take control of your situation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This article is excellent in and of itself. But the fact that it appears in one of the nation\u2019s premiere newspapers says that the mainstream is starting to take witchcraft and Paganism seriously, even if they don\u2019t see magic in the same way most of us do.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s a very good thing.<\/p>\n

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photo courtesy of Viv Bennett<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We\u2019re in the middle of a witch moment<\/h2>\n

USA Today<\/em> (the nation\u2019s 3rd<\/sup> largest newspaper) has a more typical piece on Samhain titled \u2018We\u2019re in the middle of a witch moment\u2019: Hip witchcraft is on the rise in the US<\/a> by Deena Yellin. It has a bit of history, a bit of contemporary practice, and comments from several notable witches, including Manny Tejeda-Moreno of The Wild Hunt<\/a> and fellow Patheos Pagan blogger Jason Mankey<\/a>. One of Jason\u2019s quotes turned into the title:<\/p>\n

Right now, we\u2019re in the middle of a witch moment \u2026 Witchcraft is popular now and the number of witches in America is growing fast.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article quotes Helen Berger, a resident scholar at Brandeis University\u2019s Women\u2019s Studies Research Center, who says the number of Americans who identify as witches or Pagans is now almost 2 million.<\/p>\n

It quotes a 2017 Pew Research Center Survey that says \u201c62% of Americans hold New Age beliefs, including a belief in astrology, psychics and the presence of spiritual energy in inanimate objects.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article also closes with a powerful quote, this one from New Jersey witch Charlene Dzielak. In talking about how things have changed in recent years, she said that whenever she wears her pentagram necklace she draws positive attention. \u201cPeople see it and tell me they are Wiccan too.\u201d<\/p>\n

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photo courtesy of Jason Mankey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How mainstream do we want to be?<\/h2>\n

The USA Today<\/em> article touched on the question of how mainstream we want witchcraft and Paganism to be. It quoted New Jersey witch Melanie Wilbur, who \u201cworries that witchcraft has become too faddish.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a legitimate concern. If witchcraft and Paganism become too mainstream, there\u2019s a serious risk that we\u2019ll adopt the values of the mainstream and lose what it is that makes us distinctive. In the words of Peter Grey<\/a> \u201cin our desire to harm none we have become harmless.\u201d We must never allow our desire for acceptance to lead us away from the roots and the power of witchcraft and Paganism.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not the point of these articles, and it\u2019s not the point of this blog post.<\/p>\n

The mainstream is more liberal and accepting than it may seem<\/h2>\n

The point is that two of the top newspapers in the country wrote about witchcraft and presented it as a deep, serious, and meaningful path, even if they don\u2019t believe the same things about magic and the Gods as we do.<\/p>\n

Ultra conservatives and bigots will complain \u201cthis just shows how out of touch the mainstream media is.\u201d In that complaint, they make the classic error of looking in the mirror and thinking they see the average American. They forget that while the mainstream media may be on the leading edge of society, ultimately it reflects the values of the center.<\/p>\n

The media has become heavily Balkanized over the last 30 years or so, with many different outlets for many different viewpoints \u2013 and many of them with little regard for facts<\/a>. That\u2019s a far cry from my youth when there were three TV networks, all devoted to news before opinion. No outlet has the reach or the influence that Walter Cronkite had in the 1960s and 1970s. But The Washington Post<\/em> and USA Today <\/em>represent the center of America about as well as anything.<\/p>\n

And the facts back that up.<\/p>\n