It’s the time of the year when we are thinking about spooky things. Halloween may be over but I think witches, witchcraft and magic have a special hold on the hearts of us readers no matter the time of the year! Today, on Creator’s Roulette, I have C. M. McGuire. She is contributing two interesting posts about witches and magic. I have been wanting to talk more about witchcraft on the book and you can also check out the guest post about the book, Wicked.
C.M. McGuire started writing at a young age, much to the relief of her mother, whose ears needed a break from the nonstop stories. It was a passion for stories that led her to pursuing a major in history, minors in theater, and anthropology, and onto her current masters in Creative Writing. It also led to her membership in the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and the writing of her debut novel, Ironspark.
Let’s dive into learning more about witches in modern day life from her:
Why Magic Thrives
It was the winter solstice, and I’d been invited to a party by a distant friend. You know. That acquaintance you admired to the point of being a bit of a fangirl, too shy to approach, floored and flattered to be considered by her at all. After an awkward evening of mingling with people I didn’t know, participating in traditions which held no religious significance to me, I began to relax.
The mulled wine didn’t hurt.
I learned about perceptions of the Fae, who the Green Man was, and the relationship between the solstice and Christmas. In spite of living in Texas, this was clearly a very traditionally Celtic gathering.
Then, the tarot cards came out.
Everyone clambered around, eager for a reading. The reader bent over a massive spread for each of us, brows furrowed, sometimes complaining that it felt like the cards were screaming things and other times were holding back. And, without knowing anything about me, he looked up with wide eyes. I knew, in that moment, he knew about my job. About the anxious vomiting every morning before I forced myself to go in. The fear that pervaded my every waking hour. He knew, and I told him to skip ahead to the next bit. The real reason we seek our fortunes. He moved on to the hope that rested in my future, if I did whatever it was my gut told me to do.
It wouldn’t be the last time I would experience the psychological balm of magic. In an effort to help me find a partner, two of my friends led me in an invocation of Aphrodite the following year. The result was not a passionate romance but a deepening love for myself. When the New Year came, these same friends told me to practice a popular spell: To write down everything that causes me fear of anxiety, sprinkle sugar onto the paper to sweeten it in my mind, and burn it. It’s become an annual tradition for me, now, and one that helps me to move into the new year with optimism. I was no longer a passive player in the events of my life. I was taking an active effort, even beyond therapy or positive thinking, to improve my outlook.
In my novel, Ironspark, I tried to capture this in the form of Jasika, a character who stumbled into her talent for magic through gardening. In a common form of green witchery, she accidentally discovered someone’s hidden pain through the wilting of a plant she associated with them. In this way, magic has little to do with wand battles and eyes of unfortunate newts and far more to do with intent and a desire for some small sense of control.
This, I believe, is why it has historically been a refuge for marginalized groups and why it is gaining popularity even now. Trapped in a system in which someone can feel powerless, being able to grasp a practice or belief not dominated by that same system can be deeply cathartic. Maybe a charm fails. That doesn’t matter. What matters is you believed in it and it was totally yours.
Since that solstice, I’ve come to appreciate folk magic on a deeply personal level. I doubt I’ll ever become a true “witch” by traditional standards. I don’t think I’ll ever cast a successful spell or do much beyond my sugar burning and amateur tarot reading. That doesn’t matter. What matters is the sense of power you can command over your circumstances and what hope you allow it to give you.
Further reading on the appeal of witchcraft:
- Reimagining witchcraft as a refuge for marginalized groups
- Witchcraft is the perfect religion for liberal milleniums
- Why Queer People Love Witchcraft
- Pittchcraft: Turning to Witchcraft in isolation
Witch fear in the United States
A meditation on all the factors that led to our modern love and acceptance of witchcraft
I should start by saying that I really don’t identify much as a witch, nor am I an expert in the subject. I am really just an observer curious about why, exactly, perceptions changed over the years. This is entirely speculation on my part.
It’s little secret that the witch hunts occurred largely due to religious fear and callous opportunism in both Europe and the young American colonies. These would often feature a fear of witchcraft leading to accusations. The accusations would then lead to torture designed to force a confession or to force the would-be “witch” to name others, followed by an execution. At this time, the Puritan beliefs that laid the foundations of American culture vehemently established that what was not of the church was to be considered evil, and any sort of magic was to be considered the result of a deal with the devil. You were either a good Christian, or you were among those predestined for damnation. A good Christian worked hard, prayed often, and hoped that they were among the few chosen for salvation, since their actions on Earth would make little difference. Witchcraft, which relied on an individual outside of the church drawing on the power of either themselves or nature (or the devil, as many Christians interpreted it) was firmly outside this binary.
Of course, many of these beliefs would be challenged as the Enlightenment revolutionized the world and the scientific revolution dispelled many of the old fears and superstitions. A rising wave of Deist belief placed the emphasis for the good and evil of the world squarely on humans, without any supernatural intervention. In fact, what is considered by some to be the first truly American literary form, transcendentalism, argues for fierce individuality, oneness with nature, and even a pantheistic approach to religion, which fundamentally encourages a perspective of unity when looking at other people and cultures. While I believe the rise of scientific reasoning certainly helped to dispel old fears and superstitions, it cannot be credited to a wider acceptance of the use of witchcraft. Instead, it would simply set the stage for later phenomena that would allow for this.
If the fear of witchcraft once thrived because of the insular belief, then chipping away at that could allow for individuals to embrace former taboos such as secular thinking and the study and understanding of other religions. As superstitions began to die and an increasingly global society exposed people to foreign ideas, the real question had to be asked: was this really dangerous?
The assumption that it was came from the inherent evil of anything resembling a pagan practice. However, as different world cultures began to mingle, it was harder and harder to label everything non-Christian in that same way.
I would argue that, as much as the exposure of individuals to other cultures laid the groundwork for this shift in thinking, cinema also played a vital role in changing the perception thanks to the rise of the horror genre. This may seem ironic since supernatural entities were often the monsters to be defeated. However, if you watch closely, the most resonant and long-lasting monsters of horror cinema were often those who were inherently sympathetic. Frankenstein’s Creature, Swamp Thing, and the Phantom of the Opera all said one thing very clearly: the unknown may be just as human as you. Add to this the fact that Miller’s The Crucible effectively condemned the witch hunts while being a modern allegory and witches would inevitably become more of a strange, even pitiable figure compared to what they once were.
After this, the rise of the Wiccan and New Age movements, second-wave feminism, and the wave of widely-released genre movies such as The Craft, Practical Magic, Teen Witch, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and witches were inevitably going to find themselves with an alternative identity in the US. They could be literary devices for good or evil, feminist icons, or a refuge for those to whom folk magic can be an empowering force or simply a place of acceptance without fear of persecution.
What ‘what if’ keeps you up at night?
I hope you enjoyed reading about witches! You can connect with C.M. on Twitter (@seeemmcguire) or find her on instagram (@see_em_mcguire) or visit her website.
From Unsplash:
Banner Photo of smoke by Pascal Meier
Taror cards photo by Content Pixie
Potions and cauldron photo by Artem Malsev
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