The Feminist Magic of the Older Witch

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YES! Magazine
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Witchcraft is having a moment. But look past pop culture's teenaged spellbinders and consider the encouraging example of the unconventional crone.

The Feminist Magic of the Older Witch
yesmagazine.org
https://t.co/Rfex63UOS6?amp=1

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Although the witches from fairytales might all be crones, current witch discourse remains obsessed with—and targeted at—youth. And the witch definitely is having something of a cultural moment, though it’s by no means her first. Her popularity seems to experience a perennial revival alongside surges in women’s rights: the revitalization of Wicca in the 1970s, the boom in magic-adjacent popular culture in the 1990s, and now, the era of the digital witch, where many magically inclined young women find their communities in the ether of the internet. Vice is chock-full of witch-themed content, some of it fascinating, most of it self-consciously shallow. (The best features are about visiting renowned forest witch Susun Weed, who lives in upstate New York, or about modern-day brujas engaging in the rituals of their ancestors after decades of colonial displacement from their own traditions. The mini-documentary on Romanian witches who accept payment to cast love spells and predict the future is also a must-watch.) Sites like HelloGiggles, Zooey Deschanel and friends’ foray into fluffy women’s media, have articles called things like “Witchcraft 101,” with instructions on how to make a sufficiently mystical-looking grimoire. Rookie had a similar series on witchiness, with crystal guides and tips on how to set up an altar. And make-up giant Sephora recently courted controversy by advertising beginners’ witchcraft kits, containing a bundle of sage, a rose quartz crystal and several mystical scents. (The kits were eventually pulled from production after an outcry from the witch community.)

The enduring figure of the teen witch is evidence enough of a youth-obsessed witch revival, as is the recent reboot of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, reimagined as The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina with a distinctly less bubbly and more Beelzebub-centered storyline. Focusing on the teen witch makes sense considering girls’ historical association with uncanny events (Salem, Joan of Arc, the long tradition of pubescent girls attracting poltergeists and hauntings), and our continuing uneasiness over teenage girls’ near-supernatural powers of change. But I’m no longer a teenager, and I won’t be in Vice’s target demographic forever. The appeal of identifying as a witch now, as I look into my future, is much more complex than when I was a 13-year-old first toying with Wicca.

We’re at a cultural turning point where it feels like real change is at once within reach and about to be snatched away for good. Even as the #MeToo movement powers on, toppling predators from their thrones, the most powerful man in the world has made his predatory nature part of his brand and his platform. Women are spurred into solidarity with one another by the eerie plausibility of “The Handmaid’s Tale” just as much as they are by the aspirational fantasy of “Wonder Woman.” The world, not just for women, but for everyone, seems to have gone awry. Scientists tell us we have 12 years to undo a century of climate destruction. People are choosing to remain childless rather than bring new life into an uncertain world. Nazis are a thing again. A sense of unreality permeates everything, and for women, who have spent generations locked in a grim battle for rights—at our jobs, in our bedrooms, on the operating table—that other reality is a dark one. We teeter on this precipice; we could go either way; things are not in our control on any plane of the familiar. We’re simultaneously the vectors of change and the bodies upon which it’s wrought. It is a perilous place to be, in this uncharted terrain.

Being a witch promises us a lodestone: a legacy, a lineage of women, weird and wise, who came before us. It gives us a context in which to fit our suspicions, fears, superstitions and our new, unexpected lateral power. It provides meaning in an otherwise barren spiritual landscape, without demanding the sacrifice or cognitive dissonance of most mainstream religions. It suggests a connection to a broad, if invisible, network of other women practicing the Craft. And it promises a compass with which to navigate the unknowable territory of growing older.