Why Witchcraft?
And why NOT Christianity?
Since I’ve recently been outed to family about my practice I want to clear a few things up on HOW I got here.
I guess it’s time I take a dose of my own medicine and reread my pots about the broom closet and coming out!
Disclaimer: This is my personal experience, and it will be a discussion about why I chose witchcraft over my childhood religion.
I was raised evangelical Christian and I will be discussing that at length.
A lot of people make this transition after leaving organized religion so I hope it helps!
TW: heavy discussion of childhood abuse, violence against women, cults, trauma, and fear.
“Burn the witch”: an attack on women
In order to get to the WHY we need to see the HOW.
It’s important to talk about where this witch panic came from. The answer is 15th century Europe.
This is the book that describes exactly how to capture, torture, kill, and dispose of women convicted of witchcraft.
It was widely used as a guidebook in Europe for over 200 years.
If you’ve heard of the Salem Witch Trials and other trials of the late 1600s then this might not surprise you.
But the core of this craze came not from the dangers of women, but the hatred from angry men.
(And maybe lead poisoning from the surrounding soil, but that is a story for a different day.)
Is this still relevant?
Historically, yes. Culturally, also yes. Let me explain:
The Catholic church was a huge part of developed countries and settlements when this book was written.
The Catholic church perpetuated this fear of the devil working within people.
Even as a kid growing up fundamentalist Protestant bordering on charismatic Pentecostal I still saw this trending like crazy.
Perhaps not the killing part, but certainly the fear and trauma.
1600s Women were the majority of healers
There was no Big Pharma, and diseases have existed since the existence of life.
Women were barred from getting an education or reading books or attending lectures.
They passed their knowledge from mother to daughter and became known as “wise women”, especially for those in poverty who couldn’t afford anything else.
There were…
…two separate, important phases in the male takeover of healthcare: the suppression of witches in medieval Europe, and the rise of the male medical profession in 19th century America.”
-Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English
So, yes, I would say that this is relevant.
Organized religion, the suppression of women, and the ongoing fear of witchcraft and the occult.
“What you’re doing is dangerous!”
Since being outed against my will I have heard this from several religious family and friends.
But what I’ve noticed is that the people telling me this haven’t actually made any effort to know what I actually do.
It’s been labelled “demonic”, “risky”, and “ungodly”.
What do they think I’m doing? Sacrificing babies?
It’s clear there is some kind of disconnect between religiosity and research.
So let me be clear:
I’m not convinced that gods exists. I’m not convinced that goddesses, devils, demons, or angels exist.
I don’t put anyone down for working with deities. I just don’t work with them.
and I CERTAINLY don’t perform blood magick by invoking a sacrificial death through communion.
That’s highly advanced and can be very dangerous.
The satanic panic
Whether or not I’ve told you that I don’t work with demons may not matter to you.
If someone believes that demons or the devil exist then they might still think they work with me.
So I think it’s time we discuss fear mongering in the Christian church.
Some of us remember the 80’s. I don’t, but I love the music still.
But with Rock and Roll and epic ballads of hair bands came some paranoia from the religious right.
Do you remember the fear of backward masking?
It was all the rage for paranoid parents that their children were listening to devil music.
AC/DC, Kiss, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin…
People found all kinds of creepy messages hidden in music when played backwards.
Were those messages placed there intentionally?
Was the devil working behind the scenes to attract the next generation?
And what about Pokémon?
Enslaved creatures obeying their masters.
Teaching young children about evolution.
And Dungeons and Dragons?
Jack T. Chick’s worst nightmare.
It will surely teach young children about how to cast spells and frolic with the occult.
And what about the pentagram?
An evil star symbol to summon the dead?
And speaking of the pentagram…
How do we account for superstitious accounts and unlucky numbers?
13, 666, ghosts, cults, black cats, seeing faces in trees, walking under ladders, hearing your name when no one’s around, sleep paralysis, goats, the evil eye.
Isn’t the devil in all of those things?
What I’m trying to get at here is that fear mongering exists very needlessly in modern culture.
Shouldn’t you be better safe than sorry?
Let me tell you the story of my Christian baptism.
You already know that I grew up conservative, but one thing that stood out in my family was fear of the devil.
The devil is almost like a demigod to my family.
He can know your thoughts, tempt you, be anywhere at any time, be invisible!
And of course, the biggest lie he ever told was convincing the world he didn’t exist…
But growing up in my Christian family meant that I had to one day get baptized.
And for the right reasons, of course!
So at age 8 my dad sat me down and told me about the Roman’s road to salvation.
But more importantly he taught me about HELL.
If I didn’t get baptized then this loving god would send me straight to the pit of burning fire for my sins.
We even had an original art piece in our house of the unseen spiritual warfare for our souls.
I had my very own necklace with a giant FEAR NOT and Isaiah 41:10.
This was a very important decision for me.
I knew what I had to do!
The thing about religious fear mongering is that it targets children.
We trust our parents.
They know best, and kids are just walking sponges with no other sources for information.
Our parents trusted their parents.
They love us.
It’s easy to overlook the gorey and terrifying stories in the Bible if they’re ingrained in us as kids.
Take the story of Noah’s ark.
It’s painted on nursery walls and illustrated in children’s books.
Who doesn’t love colorful animals?
But when I read the story as an adult I get a very different and sinister impression of the character of god.
I didn’t get baptized because I wanted to go to heaven.
I got baptized because I was absolutely terrified of going to HELL.
And here’s the real kicker about that: even outside of the religion I still have nightmares about hell.
That fear stayed with me through adulthood because it was so vivid in my little kid mind.
There’s no easy way to say this so I’ll blurt it out:
That was child abuse.
So I asked the question a bit back:
‘Shouldn’t you be better safe than sorry?’
My answer is–it’s actually more damaging and traumatic to conjure up superstitious images and rhetoric that fit your current beliefs.
What is “safe”? What is “sorry?”
That’s a fallacy of a false choice.
“Cat, you were such a good Christian girl…”
“What happened?”
(I get that a lot.)
Why would such a devoted Christian turn her back on her faith?
She was supposed to bring others to Christ.
She had so much talent and a sense of community.
I’ll tell you:
My standard of ethics changed.
And I certainly didn’t lose my sense of community.
I didn’t just throw the baby out with the bath water.
I grew a lot in between realizing the faults in organized religion and now.
I knew I wanted to be an activist and a voice for the voiceless.
For abandoned children.
For the houseless, mentally ill, differently abled.
I knew I wanted to help fix injustices in my country.
I wanted to do all of this without the baggage of religion.
I didn’t need to give a sermon or hand out chick tracts.
And in the course of two decades I finally found my place of belonging.
“Don’t blame god for the failures of flawed Christians.”
As I mentioned, I’m not convinced that a god exists at all.
I can’t blame something that in my mind has yet to be proven.
But when Christians say this to me in love I recount the words of a fellow atheist:
Of course Christians sometimes fail to live up to their ideals. Everybody does. I’m a secular humanist, and I fail to live up to my ideals all the time. My problem with Christianity is not Christians failing to live up to their ideals. It’s Christians succeeding in living up to their ideals.”
@iblamebill
Sin nature and purity culture are harmful.
Inequality based on gender is harmful.
Indoctrinating and baptizing children is harmful.
Fear mongering is harmful.
I can say that with first-hand experience.
Reclaiming spiritualism
Organized religion is not for me.
And I’m searching for truth just like everyone else.
reclaiming spirituality is about finding my own way that does work for me.
And that first started with fostering a healthy sense of skepticism.
I don’t believe in…
- psychics
- devils
- demons
- gods
- ghosts
- mediums
- big foot
- alien abductions
- faith healings
- demon possessions
- chakras
- chem trails
- NDEs
The list goes on.
Why?
While I’ve fostered a healthy sense of skepticism I maintain one thing:
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
And that applies to my own practice as well!
I don’t always agree with other witches either.
But this effort to find my own path has allowed me to maintain my spiritualism without the baggage of my upbringing.
Liberation and living on my own terms.
The beautiful thing about where I am in life is that I don’t have to accept the garbage I was spoon fed as a kid.
And my beliefs can evolve based on new evidence.
(Actual, science-based REAL convincing evidence.)
I can change my mind, admit I was wrong, change my behavior.
I finally don’t feel like I’m better than anyone else because I have some secret knowledge.
I can live an accountable life and amend my wrongs in this lifetime.
There’s no afterlife for me as far as I can tell.
I’m not longing for another eternal life surrounded by people I can’t stand.
I can fight for equality, justice, funds, proper separation of church and state, free speech.
All without the baggage of religion holding me back.
This is so incredibly crucial to my wellbeing.
I’m not afraid anymore.
Once I started questioning everything and doing my own research I realized that a lot of fear comes from the unknown.
My skepticism is not cynicism.
It’s healthy to question authority, traditions, methods, practice, information, sources, and motives.
I’m reasonably convinced of that.
But the crippling fear I was taught to have over EVERYTHING that might be “ungodly” is gone.
That fear mongering mindset was contagious.
It permeated everything.
As someone already prone to panic attacks I felt that.
But I don’t have to be afraid.
And neither do you.
