Recently, modern witchcraft has been on the rise. I am interested to hear some discussion and discourse from your perspective, on any aspect of modern witchcraft. Myself, I try to be respectful of most religions. That said, I have always been a little annoyed by anyone who believes they can, for example, control the weather or read peoples minds, which seems to be the case in this article, and in several witchcraft-related memes and stuff I've seen floating around. In addition, I think the whole idea of witchcraft as an opposition to the status quo is very much a bourgeois/liberal mindset. Instead of using affirmative action to actually work for change, it's turning to faith and a belief in the occult in order to solve your issues. It seems to me to be almost entirely composed of young, upper-middle class white women that have not needed to struggle or known the struggle of other classes. In essence, a liberal reaction to the people in power. Any thoughts? Willing to change my mind.
Witchcraft as an aesthetic is very much neoliberal and bourgeois. Unfortunately, this is the majority of engagement with magick that you see. However, magick is more than witchcraft as a fashion choice. For me, I had my spiritual awakening a couple years ago, before I even had my political awakening, but the two are connected.
Paganism is a great alternative to religion, once you see the need for spiritualism in your life, but still see all the evils and mind control that religion perpetuate. Also religions don't really want you to think for yourself, where the practice of magick is all about thinking for yourself. Aleister Crowley's Magick:Book 4 is a great read, and his main teaching is "Do what thou wilt!". Also, all humans share in the divine (as above, so below) Ultimately I think following this philosophy is what allowed me to break free from the neoliberal consensus world view.
Modern society is very much lacking in meaningful spiritual living, which contributes to our soul sucking capitalist world. The left should embrace neo-paganism imo, not as organized religion, but as individual pursuit.
See: r/witchesvspatriarchy
God, one of the top posts is literally "RBG is the last thing standing between the US and Fascism". Of course, it was before she died. I don't know what kind of delusions you're in if you think she is the bottleneck, when the laws she upholds are based in american imperialism
witchesvpatriarchy is also an incredibly narrow sample of "witchcraft", as an aesthetic or otherwise. it would be as much a mistake to get your representative take on the whole of witchcraft from Reddit as any other niche community, Reddit itself leaning neoliberal and bourgeois
Made this account just for this thread, and I completely agree, I jumped ship from Christianity a long time ago and haven't ever regretted it.
Appreciate the commitment. I try to come up with interesting topics that will bring in people and maybe spark some discussion.
I get what you mean and can relate to your order of events. I too had something of a "spiritual" Awakening, and it's what enabled my political shift as well, but it was totally void of any super natural framing. I guess I'd be curious to learn more about what Paganism does for you, given I know little about it but did not need it on my own journey.
I delved deep enough into philosophy that I found that sense of awe and humility that I do often hear about from those who describe religious/spiritual revelations. It wasn't just the philosophy, though, it was combined with studying history, mathematics/logic, social and hard sciences (particularly cosmology/astronomy, but one can find just as much to marvel at within ecology or chemistry too, for example), and beginning to realize just how incredibly VAST the collection of human knowledge is, and how it pales in comparison of what is still to be learned. I experienced "The Sublime," as Schopenhauer called it as I began to see how interconnected all of these systems were, and how incredible it was that we humans could explore the cognitive horizon.
To be a part of that, ALL of that, is reason enough to stand in awe and reverence. To me, it seems like we don't lack meaningful access to spirituality, but rather we have too sterile a relationship with the incredible intellectual tools we use every day. I think that we'd be better served by providing language and ritual that celebrates education not as a means to increase profits, but as a means for better relating to the Universe and human kind itself. Alternative narratives like Witchcraft or Religion seem like they have the potential to confuse or alienate people from fully finding meaning in the Universe as it is.
I might start by distilling it down to the surrender of how little we actually know. Yes, I personally know almost nothing of the great expanse of human knowledge, but likewise humans know almost nothing of the multi-verse. The great arrogance of science and factions like the "new atheists" is believing that because they can't prove something exists, it definitely doesn't exist. Basically, we have good enough technology now that we mistakenly think that everything we can measure and perceive with our limited senses is the end all of reality.
I think in order to be a truly effective force for good you have to have an unshakeable grounding of morality and sense of justice. Of course it doesn't have to come from any super natural framing, I think Marxism can give people that same grounding of morality, because it ultimately means making sacrifices towards equality of people you've never met, really a love of humanity.
I was an atheist, but as I got more into meditation and yoga, I became more spiritual. Also as some have pointed out, my material conditions got worse so I looked for tools to help me wherever i could find them. However, it took some specific experiences I had to gain that unshakeable faith, many of which involved psychedelic drugs, so maybe drugs are the answer? lol
Well once again we have common ground lol. Shrooms offered me a new insight that I likely wouldn't have had without them. It's funny, I feel like I could have written your very same comment, and I think we're definitely grappling with a similar subjective experience. It really is that 'surrender' which is the most important first step to shifting our perspective. Hate to harken back to Socrates, but admission of ignorance is a wisdom of its own kind.
I've been been Journaling and writing on these topics for a little over a year now, it's refreshing to to see it somewhere besides my own notes. It does seem like a potential narrative shift that could help restore meaning and spiritual significance that works better for the contemporary world, whether it goes by paganism or any other name.