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.
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.