becoming<\/em>. High school would be different. I could feel it.<\/p>\n\u201cUhhhhh\u2026excuse me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oh no. Spotted. \u00a0Before the first bell, even.<\/p>\n
The girl had dyed-black hair and a hoop through her eyebrow. Definitely an upperclassman. Her burgundy Doc Martens made my blue Keds seem positively babyish and I was instantly a middle schooler all over again.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou like NIN?\u201d She pronounced the acronym phonetically, and I glanced at the Nine Inch Nails patch freshly ironed (by my mom) onto my backpack, flung\u00a0at the base of my new locker.<\/p>\n
Oh thank god. Recognition. Maybe she would be my friend. I recovered momentarily at the prospect.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah! Have you\u00a0preordered The Fragile?<\/em>\u00a0It\u2019s still, like, forever away.\u201d<\/p>\nShe sneered openly.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo\u2026if you like NIN, what\u2019s with the Old Navy shirt?\u201d<\/p>\n
Well fuck. There went that.<\/p>\n
I was called out right away. Not because I\u2019d said anything stupid, marking me as a dilettante (she should have at least listened to my solo guitar rendition of Head Like a Hole<\/em>, which is still awesome, if I may say so), but because I didn\u2019t look<\/em> like a Nine Inch Nails fan. I didn\u2019t possess any of the superficial markers that would convey my authenticity to someone like the black-haired angry girl blocking the hallway. I was embarrassed, but mostly confused. Who cared about my shirt? What about the music?<\/p>\nI have flashbacks to this moment\u2014maybe forty seconds out of my whole high school career\u2014every time another witch tells me that I\u2019m not really practicing witchcraft because, essentially, I\u2019m not scary enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cReal witches aren\u2019t afraid to use blood.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cReal witchcraft is grimey and gory.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cReal witches have skulls on the altar to talk to the dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOMG the spell I did last night involved so much blood\/piss\/demons!\u201d<\/p>\n
OooOOooOOo spooOOOoooky!<\/p>\n
Often, these statements aren\u2019t really there to tell anyone anything useful about witchcraft. They\u2019re there to disparage other<\/em> kinds of witchcraft. It\u2019s one thing to try to educate someone about your Craft\u2014whatever that may entail\u2014but it\u2019s quite another to toss in caveats about realness, as though that\u2019s objectively a thing and not a social construction that moves according to whatever agenda is at stake.<\/p>\nMusical genres tend to go hand-in-hand with clothing styles and attitudes. I went through high school constantly in this weird defensive state where my musical tastes were concerned. I wasn\u2019t one of the goth kids, even though I listened to the same bands and privately indulged in the same literary melodrama. I wasn\u2019t aggressive enough for the metal kids. I wasn\u2019t allowed to pierce anything, and my mom still had final say over my wardrobe, so I definitely didn\u2019t fit in with the punk kids, even though I played in bands with half of them before graduation. All that emphasis on outward appearance made for a lot of unnecessary anxiety.<\/p>\n
Similarly, \u201creal witchcraft\u201d has an aesthetic, whether or not we consciously mean to create one. There are earmarks we look for, and those become more prominent as the trend becomes further entrenched, particularly in Internet culture. Skulls, bones, blood, poison, madness. None of these things are in and of themselves witchcraft, but increasingly they come to symbolize it. Using blood titillates, and it marks Craft as \u201cauthentic\u201d so we hardly even bother to ask ourselves whether or not the blood is actually\u00a0necessary. Nevermind where the bones come from and how they were acquired, just having them on the altar lends the work a certain feeling that makes it \u201creal.\u201d Sure, spend your time and money hunting for that only piece of European mandrake on Etsy, whether or not it actually bears any connection to an American witchcraft. Hey, have you tried that commercially available flying ointment? It\u2019s back in stock. Better hurry before it sells out again.<\/p>\n
We hardly stop to wonder whether or not we should<\/em>\u2014and why\u2014before jumping into something, purely in pursuit of that feeling of achievement at having found something authentic<\/em>. We know that \u201creal witches\u201d work with the dead (whatever that means, depending on who you talk to), but we don\u2019t always stop to consider if that\u2019s the best course of action in any given situation. \u201cReal witches\u201d are rooted in secret histories, so we manipulate our family trees and take scholarship out of context, drawing flimsy parallels to make ourselves feel legitimate. We rarely stop to ask why that sort of history should mean anything at all.<\/p>\nScary, bloody, dark, old. That\u2019s how we know it\u2019s authentic witchcraft. Authenticity becomes something we can buy, something we can wear, something we can post pictures of on Instagram.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not opposed to these aspects of the Craft. Sometimes witchcraft is\u2014has to be\u2014these things. This isn\u2019t a squeamish Wiccan crying out against blood and guts. But I want to suggest that, because the blood and guts are exactly<\/em> as potent as \u201creal witches\u201d say they are, maybe they should be treated with more care. When we\u2019re constantly peeing and bleeding on things, bodily fluids just don\u2019t seem quite as significant. Maybe it\u2019s just me. At some point, all of that obsessing over seeming \u201creal\u201d starts to look pretty absurd, especially when so much of that effort is just posturing directed at other witches. As though other peoples\u2019 Craft could have any real bearing on your own.<\/p>\nSo I don\u2019t look scary. My mandrake is really mayapple and I don\u2019t own enough skulls. You see another witch choosing to focus on crystals and earth goddesses, and you scoff. She\u2019s got the patch on her backpack, but she doesn\u2019t match your criteria or meet your expectations. And if something isn\u2019t right there on the surface it must not be there at all, right?<\/p>\n
What do we miss when we focus on an aesthetic, independent of substance? Can we even tell the difference? What is a secretive art when it\u2019s also a hashtag? A commodity? What good is infighting over authenticity when we spend more time sneering than practicing?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recent trends on constructing an authentic witchcraft emphasize blood, bones, and darkness. But at what point is this just posturing?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2241,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,4],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pagan-community","category-wicca","tag-authenticity"],"yoast_head":"\n
Screw Your Aesthetic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Recent trends on constructing an authentic witchcraft emphasize blood, bones, and darkness. But at what point is this just posturing?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/2016\/03\/screw-your-aesthetic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Screw Your Aesthetic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Recent trends on constructing an authentic witchcraft emphasize blood, bones, and darkness. But at what point is this just posturing?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/2016\/03\/screw-your-aesthetic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Oathbound\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thorn.mooney\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-03-18T03:48:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/files\/2016\/03\/skulls-e1458271666256.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Thorn Mooney\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@tarotskeptic\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Thorn Mooney\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/2016\/03\/screw-your-aesthetic\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/2016\/03\/screw-your-aesthetic\/\",\"name\":\"Screw Your Aesthetic\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-03-18T03:48:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-03-18T03:48:19+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/#\/schema\/person\/a23c7b958f83b01c7a852a42dd1fc34b\"},\"description\":\"Recent trends on constructing an authentic witchcraft emphasize blood, bones, and darkness. But at what point is this just posturing?\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/2016\/03\/screw-your-aesthetic\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/2016\/03\/screw-your-aesthetic\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/2016\/03\/screw-your-aesthetic\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Screw Your Aesthetic\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/\",\"name\":\"Oathbound\",\"description\":\"Witchcraft and Magic from the Gut\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/#\/schema\/person\/a23c7b958f83b01c7a852a42dd1fc34b\",\"name\":\"Thorn Mooney\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a55d22ed8bca2600cc0b56e49250bb15?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a55d22ed8bca2600cc0b56e49250bb15?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Thorn Mooney\"},\"description\":\"Thorn Mooney is a Witch of more than twenty years and the high priestess of Foxfire, a traditional Gardnerian coven thriving in the American South. She holds a graduate degree in religious studies and is completing a second in English literature. Thorn has worked as a university lecturer, public school teacher, academic journal manager, tarot reader, writer, and musician. She maintains a longstanding YouTube channel, has been blogging about Witchcraft and the occult for more than a decade, and is a regular at Pagan festivals throughout the United States. Aside from her esoteric pursuits, Thorn is a historical fencer, a traditional archer, and a seasoned guitarist. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with her husband and a pride of cats. Visit her and find more of her work at www.thornthewitch.com.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.thornthewitch.com\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thorn.mooney\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/thornthewitch\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tarotskeptic\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/drawingKenaz\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/author\/tmooney\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Screw Your Aesthetic","description":"Recent trends on constructing an authentic witchcraft emphasize blood, bones, and darkness. But at what point is this just posturing?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/2016\/03\/screw-your-aesthetic\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Screw Your Aesthetic","og_description":"Recent trends on constructing an authentic witchcraft emphasize blood, bones, and darkness. But at what point is this just posturing?","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/2016\/03\/screw-your-aesthetic\/","og_site_name":"Oathbound","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thorn.mooney","article_published_time":"2016-03-18T03:48:19+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/files\/2016\/03\/skulls-e1458271666256.jpg"}],"author":"Thorn Mooney","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@tarotskeptic","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Thorn Mooney","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/2016\/03\/screw-your-aesthetic\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/2016\/03\/screw-your-aesthetic\/","name":"Screw Your Aesthetic","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-03-18T03:48:19+00:00","dateModified":"2016-03-18T03:48:19+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/#\/schema\/person\/a23c7b958f83b01c7a852a42dd1fc34b"},"description":"Recent trends on constructing an authentic witchcraft emphasize blood, bones, and darkness. But at what point is this just posturing?","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/2016\/03\/screw-your-aesthetic\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/2016\/03\/screw-your-aesthetic\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/2016\/03\/screw-your-aesthetic\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Screw Your Aesthetic"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/","name":"Oathbound","description":"Witchcraft and Magic from the Gut","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/#\/schema\/person\/a23c7b958f83b01c7a852a42dd1fc34b","name":"Thorn Mooney","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a55d22ed8bca2600cc0b56e49250bb15?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a55d22ed8bca2600cc0b56e49250bb15?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Thorn Mooney"},"description":"Thorn Mooney is a Witch of more than twenty years and the high priestess of Foxfire, a traditional Gardnerian coven thriving in the American South. She holds a graduate degree in religious studies and is completing a second in English literature. Thorn has worked as a university lecturer, public school teacher, academic journal manager, tarot reader, writer, and musician. She maintains a longstanding YouTube channel, has been blogging about Witchcraft and the occult for more than a decade, and is a regular at Pagan festivals throughout the United States. Aside from her esoteric pursuits, Thorn is a historical fencer, a traditional archer, and a seasoned guitarist. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with her husband and a pride of cats. Visit her and find more of her work at www.thornthewitch.com.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.thornthewitch.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/thorn.mooney","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/thornthewitch\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/tarotskeptic","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/drawingKenaz"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/author\/tmooney\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2241"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oathbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"skulls\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/540\/2016\/03\/skulls-e1458271666256.jpg\")
<\/a>It was 1999 and I was finally a high schooler. Finally<\/em>. A new school, new people, and an opportunity for reinvention. I was going to make this first week count. New clothes, new backpack, my first tube of concealer, and even a new pentacle necklace. Everything would change. I was becoming<\/em>. High school would be different. I could feel it.<\/p>\n