ARE MEN WELCOME? – PAGAN SPACES AND THE MALE UNEASE WITH FEMALE LEADERSHIP
If, like me, you have been navigating the waters of pagan and magical communities for a while you might have noticed that very often, and especially outside of more “traditional” orders with a clear hierarchical structure, women tend to be in the majority.
For a long time, this translated into the usual formula, that can still be observed in most Christian churches, of a male leader surrounded by a large number of female handmaidens that take care of the day-by-day running of things. However, In the last two to three decades (depending on the country you live in) things have begun to change and female leadership has become increasingly common in these groups.
This seems to me a completely natural phenomenon and the result of the gradual empowerment of women: capable sisters have started to understand that they could, in fact, be leaders and the people guiding these communities have started reflecting more closely the gender ratio of the communities themselves.
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that many men, even those that present themselves as “allies”, are not taking this change all that well.
NOTICING A TREND
Since when I was just a teenager getting started on this path, I have always been part of mixed groups . Not because of any ideological belief or socio-political stance but simply because I am generally not interested in the topics and practices that are usually explored in women-only spaces.
In practical terms, this means that most of the groups I have led have been comprised of a majority of women and a small minority of men and, during all these years, I have noticed an interesting trend.
Very often, men, especially when they are relatively new to the group will come up to me and ask similar questions.
“Why are there so many women?”
“Is there space for men, as well?”
“I would like to go further on this path but I wonder if men are welcome…”
Now, for a time these reactions have puzzled me because, in retrospect, I understand that I was viewing them through the lens of the female experience. When women express unease in a space that is frequented mostly by men, this usually means that they feel unsafe or discriminated against in some way. So, I tried to understand why these men could feel that way even if I could discern no behaviors (on part of the women that led or frequented those spaces) or structural reasons that could generate those feelings. I spoke with these men and asked them to explain what they meant by those remarks.
It was a powerful lesson.
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WHAT THEY SAY VS WHAT THEY MEAN
It turns out that what lied behind those questions wasn’t really a feeling of being unsafe or unwelcome, but something very different. These men were experiencing the same discomfort that women feel every time they are part of a reality where the leading roles are consistently occupied by men: something we face every single day, despite representing slightly more than half of the general population, in pretty much all those places (be they physical or not) where true power is exerted.
I understood that these men are asking “Is there place for me, here?” not because they have experienced discrimination or made to feel unwelcome but because, maybe for the first time in their lives, they find themselves wanting to be in a space where their gender is not the default.
When they are saying “I wonder if men are welcome here” what they are really asking is “Could I become a valued leader here? Is there space for me at the top?”.
I have come to realize that many men will enter a room, see that it’s mostly women running things, and, instead of coming to the natural conclusion that it’s only natural that an overwhelming majority of female participants should result in same proportions being reflected in the leadership roles of that community, they will immediately jump to the fear of being unable to “climb the ranks” or being considered an equally valuable member just because of their gender.
In short, their gut reaction is to be afraid that they will be treated as women have historically been treated in patriarchal societies.
“THIS IS UNCOMFORTABLE: COULD YOU HOLD MY HAND AS I PROCESS THAT I AM NOT ALWAYS AT THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING, ANYWHERE I GO?”
Sometimes these questions are just a jerk-knee reaction to that first feeling of discomfort that tends to dissolve as people settle into the group and are able to let go of that instinctive reaction enough for them to perceive that they are, in fact, being made to feel welcome and valued, just as much as everybody else.
However, that’s not always the case.
Some men will make it clear that the discomfort they feel is a problem YOU (meaning the woman/women that happen to hold that leadership role) need to solve and that everything around them needs to shift to accommodate their sensibilities.
“Using the generic female plural for a group comprised by a 90% of women is not nice: why can’t we use the generic male plural (AKA the default) instead?”
“Why are there so few men? Shouldn’t you make a deliberate effort to attract more men?”
“Why do women-only circles exist? It’s unfair. You should speak to those women who hold them and explain that if we men need to be allowed in women-centered spaces, so that you can teach us to be better.”
“Why shouldn’t we have men-only circles, as well? Couldn’t you organize them for us?”
These are all things that, at one point or another, I have been told by male participants.
And if, back when I was younger, I had had the patience to smile and carefully choose my words so that I could help them de-construct and question the reasoning behind those demands, now I find that my tolerance for this kind of entitled behavior is running empty.
Dear men who are fine with a situation in which women are the majority as long as a man is at the helm but feel a strange unease as soon as the leadership changes gender, I have something important to say to you: I. Don’t. Care.
Learn to deal with it without making it everyone else’s problem: you will probably learn something very valuable in the process.
The women in those spaces only owe you the same courtesy, respect and fairness they extend to all others: they are not there to mother you or do any kind of emotional, spiritual or self-awareness work in your stead.
Female leaders are not there to ask your forgiveness for their lack of a penis and strive to build the reality that you would prefer for you, while you sit and wait until it’s delivered in your hands.
If you dream of a larger, more vibrant, healthier, and more enterprising Pagan male community, roll up your sleeves and get to work.
And to all those men who have experienced this instinctive reaction, recognized it for what it was and deliberately put it aside, or who have never even considered the question: I hope that the future that lies before us will increasingly bear your face.
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DIANA - The stories, the masks and the body of the goddess
The seemingly placid waters of the Nemi lake shine under the light of the spring sun. The grassy shores are spread in a large embrace and over there the slopes of the forest can be seen: intricate and austere it reaches as far as the eye can see, touching the sky on the rim of the ancient volcanic crater.
The sanctuary of Nemi was, for a long time, one of the most renowned and frequented of the ancient world; the Appia road passed right by it and it was cluttered with the carts of the pilgrims, the extended hands of the beggars and the shops offering ex-voto and the special bread loaves to be offered to the goddess. Merchants and gladiators coaches; emperors and slaves; men and women; nobles and commoners; sufferers looking for healing and brides to be; grieving families and young wastrels looking for girls: people of all kinds came to the sanctuary.
However, no matter thousands of years of frequentation, the sacred area of Nemi retains untouched its areas of silence, the places where the Mystery whispers undisturbed. In the shady woods it seems like the outline of the rex, at once predator and prey, can still be discerned, hiding from human gazes as his predecessors before him; hundreds of lamps, used for ancient necromancy rites, still lie in the dark, deep waters; north of the lake, the caves, places where access to the underworld is gained, rest unchanged.
Here is where the outcasts, the runaways, could leave behind the laws of men and dedicate their life to the goddess, the woods and a bloody ritual; here is where our ancestors went looking for a rebirth; here is where the worlds are brought together and merge in one another; where the depths touch the heights.
Here is where even the gods came to die.
Little remains of the great gold ceiled temple, as of the cells laden with gifts and the great nymphaeum of Egeria; but the real temple, the one that ancient peoples have worshipped since the Neolithic, is still there: Diana’s living body, the core and the map of the Mystery, is still in Nemi. And it’s hiding in plain sight.
Since when the first signs of a coming back to the old polytheisms manifested in Europe, Diana has played a main and multifaceted role.
If in the Middle Ages she was seen almost exclusively as a symbol of chastity and purity, during the Romantic age there was a rediscovery of her wilder aspect, that could complement well a renewed interest for the irrational: the forests, the moon, the night… these are all elements that abound in the artistic and literary expressions of this historical phase.
From a point of view more focused on the history of neo-pagans movements and wicca (which, of course, fit rightly in this historical period and whose origins are rooted in this same massive cultural shift) [1], the converging of C.G. Lenand’s studies in the tosco-emiliana area (2), of Graves’s “White Goddess” (3) and, later, of Z. Budapest’s discussions (4), concurred in ensuring Diana’s key role in the foundational myths and in the orthopraxis of Gardnerian wicca.
In more recent times, an impressive reworking and popularization of the thesis tied to the “Goddess Movement” and to matriarchy in pre and proto historical times (thesis that were intermittently developed from late ‘700 to the forties), and the appearance of new kinds of “Italian Witchcraft” in the US, have collectively brought a revision of Diana’s image. This goddess is shown on the one hand as an ancient italic goddess, tied to an exclusive all-female cult and involved in a relationship with a lesser god of vegetation (remindful of the Ishtar-Tammuz model and Frazer’s theories)[5], and on the other hand, as a powerful goddess of the witches, honored in South Italy (particularly in Sicily) through a millenary cult that would have preceded the arrival of greek colonials and whose characteristics would have been transmitted orally to the present day, to be preserved and divulged in the overseas lands.(6)
In tutto questo, verrebbe da chiedersi,
Amid all this, a question arises: where is Diana?
Is She the virgin and chaste, yet somewhat provocative, maiden of our medieval ancestors? Is she the Mistress of wild places, beasts and blood sacrifices? Is she just an italic impression of the greek Artemis? Is she the mother presiding an agricultural cult, or is she the untamed maiden of hunting rituals? Is she the Lady of women and witchcraft or is she connected to ancient male initiatory rites?
The goddess seems to delight in making fun of us and hiding behind the endless masks that are put on her: elusive, and unbound, she never fails to rebel to the yoke that is forced on her by those that can’t respect her essential core (which is, by nature, hostile to constrictions), leaving behind her, as object of worship, only a simulacrum of others’ ideas and beliefs.
The main cult place of Diana was situated near by the ancient town of Aricia, on the shores of lake Nemi. A place of huge historical value, where important events took place: tied to the birth of the Roman Republic and the merging with the Latin peoples, as well as the tension and the restlessness that marked the beginning of the Empire.
The sacredness of this place, however, is rooted in much more ancient times, with traces of frequentation and worship coming back at least to the Bronze Age, if not to the Neolithic.
This tendency to try to harness the nature of the goddess, to bend Her in order to appease interests or visions of the world that are at odds with each other, can be found in the academic field as well, where we find a goddess of women that was originally unrelated to hunting (as in Wissowa’s studies)[7], or a divinity strictly connected to tribal rites of power succession or , again, a cultural impression that almost passively receives the features of foreign goddesses such as Hekate and Artemis.
Archaeological records and studies have long since demonstrated how the idea of Diana as an exclusively female-related goddess cannot be sustained(8), and Frazer-inspired thesis, based on extreme comparativism, that aimed at presenting her as one of the many mother goddesses tied to rural cults, have been long abandoned. Even the “potnia theron” label, so popular in the last century, is anything but clear and meaningful, from an historical point of view(9). What’s left, then?
My academic path as an archaeologist did not lead me to try to answer this question by using the tools of my training (texts, material evidence, and the slow work of historical reconstruction), until this goddess made her presence known in my life. That was when everything changed and when the dual paths I had been walking for years, as an academic and magical practitioner, began to converge, and the question ceased to be only historical. It became personal.
Around fifteen years ago, I decided to listen to Diana’s call and to peek behind the door she had opened for me, and that’s how the most magical journey of my life got started. To tell you the truth, I didn’t particularly want to. I was a still a young practitioner, even if I already had several years of experience behind me, and a young, confused, human being. Diana was not “hip” at the time (the Mother Goddess was all the rage) and, like many, I had passively absorbed the widespread idea that her cult was an exclusively women-centered one, and that was not what I was looking for(10).
There were also some very unpleasant things going on in my life that had convinced me that I needed to become tamer, to suppress the wildest parts of me and embody a different model of womanhood, in order to become “a better person”.
Then Diana came.
Meeting the different faces of the goddess led me on a journey to unveil, accept, and love all parts of myself and to understand divine mysteries in a way that is so far beyond the pretty platitudes that are often exchanged in “spiritual” contexts that it made every attempt to describe it in words feels almost hopeless.
How can you talk about a magic that speaks in blood and bones, that shifts and moves through centuries like the living being that it is, always different but always essentially the same?
How can you explain the shock and the wonder that courses through you when the things you realize you only vaguely believed in are suddenly there, as active forces manifesting in your life and changing it forever?
How can you speak about the Mysteries without making them less than what they are?
The thing is, you can’t. What I have learned in all these years, is that you can only show the door, as Diana did for me and the White Rabbit did for Alice, and let curiosity and courage do the rest.
This is what happened to me and it’s what I try to do for others when I share my path and practice with Diana Nemorensis: I open the door, but the journey is theirs alone.
If you feel called to explore the path of Diana, you can start from the foundational workshop “Diana – the Lake and Her Mysteries”, which opens the door to all the steps that can follow for those that wish to go deeper.
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R.Hutton “The Triumph of the Moon”, 1999
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The geographical area between Emilia Romagna and Tuscany. C.G. Leland “Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches”, 1899; “Etruscan Roman remains in popular tradition”, 1892.
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Graves “The White Goddess”, 1948
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Budapest, author and activist, founder of the Dianic tradition.
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Marconi “Riflessi mediterranei della più antica religione laziale”, 1937
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Publications devulging this kind of fakelore are too numerous to be listed here. R.Grimassi can, however, be considered one of the main supporters of this view.
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G. Wissowa “Diana”, RE vol.5, 1905; “Religion und kultus der Romer” Munchen, 1912
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Among others: C.M.C. Green “Roman religion and the cult of Diana at Aricia”, Cambridge 2007; Coarelli, Ghini, Diosono, Braconi “Il Santuario di Diana a Nemi”, 2014; F. Diosono “Nemi, nascita di un luogo sacro e del suo mito”, 2014; E. Malaspina “Diana nemorensis vs Diana aventinensis”, 1995; M. Moltesen “Diana and her followers in a late republican pediment from Nemi”, 2009; M. Nielsen and A.Rathje “Artumes in Etruria”, 2009.
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M.L. Nosch “Approaches to Artemis in Bronze Age Greece”, 2009.
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For reasons that keep eluding me, I happen to like men (just as I like women, even if the latter have usually done more to deserve it) and I have always preferred working in mixed groups. I am also, despite my better judgement, hopelessly heterosexual.
Let’s talk about love spells
Everybody who has ever offered their services as a magician for hire, taught magic, or even given a cursory look at the esoteric section of the local bookstore knows that love spells are at the very top of the list of things people are looking for when they decide to take a walk on the wild side and dip their toes into the occult.
From the day-to-day experience of office romances and the joys and tribulations of Tinder, to the hot dreams about ripped werewolves with angsty pasts and stalkerish ways, or soft-spoken tradwives who have popped out six babies but still naturally look like they are twenty and CAN’T WAIT to hear all about your fishing trip, one thing is clear: everybody wants love and connection.
Even if our ideas about how romantic relationships should look may differ, the desire to find someone who will love and cherish us is a need that is buried deep inside our souls.
And whenever there is a strong desire, magic is sure to follow.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that love spells are probably the single most popular kind of spell. If you don’t believe me, just go talk with someone who manages an occult shop, because no matter what trendy books might say and what people might be willing to admit to in public, the things that sell the most in magic have been the same since time immemorial: love and curses. Usually in this very order.
However, the kind of information one can find on love spells very often ranges from watered-down new agey nonsense, which is as likely to work as I am to become the new Pope, to downright malicious and toxic stuff I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, with very little to be found in between.
Because what many people don’t realize is that there are many different types of love spells, and some of them are outright curses that can have even more devastating consequences on the lives of both the target and the caster than a curse that was directly meant to cause harm would have.
Does this mean that ALL love spells are curses? Of course not. This is why understanding the different types of love spells and how they operate is very important.
I just want to meet someone
Sometimes what people are seeking is more along the lines of injecting new lymph into their social lives and meeting new, interesting people, among which interesting candidates for romantic adventures and sexy interludes may be lurking. They are not necessarily seeking to meet the love of their life and could just be looking forward to having a good time and gaining some positive experience when it comes to various kinds of relationships.
The kind of spell that addresses this need is more similar to what is usually called a “road-opening” spell, which acts by opening up avenues of possibility and bringing the potential for positive change into a stagnant situation. It does not have a direct target, nor does it act upon the caster to enhance their attractiveness. Its aim is to tweak things here and there so that the potential for new, promising social interactions, with a romantic or sexual undertone in this case, can be brought to the table.
This is a very low-risk type of spell, but it can be incredibly effective.
Rise and shine
Who doesn’t want to show their best cards? We would all like to go on a date with the guarantee that the other person will get to see us at our best, and this is exactly what this kind of spell is aimed at.
These spells work by temporarily enhancing our best qualities and allowing them to shine through in a brighter, clearer way. Think of it as akin to wearing the most flattering dress you have in your closet. It is not creating an illusion by making you perceive something that is not there, but it is showing you at your best advantage. Some types of subtle glamour magic can work in this way, or even special blessings received from deities or other powerful beings.
It is a kind of spell that is low-risk and can be useful for short-term work, but it doesn’t “keep” for long unless it’s constantly reinforced, which is something I advise against anyway, as you ultimately want to be known for the entirety of who you are.
Being irresistible
Some people are born with it, but most are not. I’m talking about that magnetic charisma that makes you stare at them across a crowded place, that fills the air with the power of their presence and forces you to take notice, and that makes you think that you just can’t have enough of being around them, even if you can’t really explain why.
Most of the time, powerful charisma is not really about the actual person who exudes it as much as it is about the illusion we see when we observe them. This is also true in the field of seduction.
There are spells whose aim is to weave a cocoon of illusion all around you in order to make you project an extremely attractive and magnetic allure that is not inherently engineered to target specific people, but can be funneled and conveyed, through action and focused attention, more specifically towards someone.
As long as they are handled with at least a modicum of good sense, for example, don’t weave a “you NEED to jump my bones right NOW!” kind of spell and then take a stroll through the violent offenders wing of a prison, these are generally medium-risk-level spells.
Be aware, though, that aside from the opportunity to first sink your hooks in and get noticed, this is not the kind of spellwork that is likely to result in a healthy, balanced relationship and that it is also quite likely to get you undesired attention and encourage over-the-top behavior in targets, whether planned or accidental.
One day, my prince(ss) will come
Have you ever seen that scene in “Practical Magic” where the young protagonist picks flowers and petals while reciting all the qualities her future ideal partner will have? Well, that’s a perfect example of this kind of love spell.
If you haven’t seen it, you can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx4v5FcBARE
The goal of this kind of spell is not to attract a specific person, but a person with specific qualities or characteristics. It is, at least in my opinion, a form of light binding in which the caster is shifting around the threads of fate so that a person with those desired qualities will show up in their life and they will be pushed towards one another. It is very hard to define the risk level for this spell, as there is a chasm of variable dimensions between what we WANT and what we NEED, but generally speaking I would place it at medium-risk level, as its results are usually not as destructive as forcing a specific person to be with you no matter what. Just be aware that no matter how you idealized your partner-to-be, the one who is going to show up will be a real person, with everything that goes with it, good and bad, and not a character starring in one of your fantasies.
This is the kind of spell I wove when I was a very young witch and that made me meet my husband, so even if it’s not one I would advise most people to cast, I guess I do have a soft spot for it.
This is bound to go wrong
Here we go. This is, unfortunately, the kind of spell that most people go seeking.
The one that will bind a specific person to you and apply strong pressure so that you will be together, as a romantic couple or at least bound to orbit around each other in that fashion, for as long as the spell is active.
Even when it is performed willingly by both parties, and most marriage rituals are a form of consensual binding with varying levels of intensity, this kind of spell can sometimes be quite destructive. Casting it on an unwilling target is akin to inviting all kinds of toxic, unbalanced, obsessive, and sometimes even violent behavior into the lives of both parties involved.
Because magic can’t fabricate love, it can only create the right conditions for it to sprout, so what these spells are going to do, since you are basically saying “to hell with the right conditions, I want this to happen no matter what!”, is fabricate obsession. And obsession is not love.
I am not going to address the ethics of this (spoiler alert: I think it’s wrong) because lecturing never works when it comes to dissuading someone from attempting a misguided spell on something they are obsessed about, so I am just offering up a point of reflection: mistaking obsession for love is the kind of thing that drives people to abuse, or even kill, their partners.
Needless to say, I consider this to be a high-risk kind of spell, but more than that, I have yet to see a case in which casting it on an unwilling subject ends well. It just never does.
Love me to death
By now you will have guessed that we are going through a climax and so this one is probably going to be the worst of the worst and, sure enough, it is. This kind of spell is an outright curse, and a vicious one at that.
Technically speaking, these are binding spells that have a built-in punishment system for the resisting target. The caster is ensuring that whenever their target tries to oppose the pull of the spell they will suffer from it and that they will keep suffering until they give in.
In ancient Greece this kind of spell was usually called agogé and it enjoyed quite a bit of popularity, especially when it came to forcing young maidens, or boys, from good families to disregard all social rules and personal inclinations and to present themselves at the door of the caster, or of the client who commissioned the spell, in order to have sexual intercourse with them. Many examples of this type of spell are analyzed in my course on ancient defixiones.
Depending on how the spell is constructed, the punishment can manifest in the form of powerful nightmares, physical ailments, or, in the most extreme cases, even death. What I personally find is that people who attempt these spells most of the time do it because they think, either openly or subconsciously, that the suffering that is threatened upon the target is just an inflated metaphor describing the pains of love. Let me assure you, it is not.
This is extremely nasty stuff that carries with it all the risks and implications of a binding spell and tops it all with a nice serving of sadism.
This is how I would personally categorise what we usually refer to as love spells, even if, as you may have surmised, some of them have very little to do with love.
I hope everybody reading this will find the kind of love they need and that they will bring it into the world and the lives of the people around them.
A quick guide to Political Sorcery.
We live in dark times and it seems likely that things will get worse before they get better. Many people feel called to use magic as a fighting tool in political and social matters but the collective spells and the advice that goes around on the internet and on social media is very often dismal.
If you are doing it, you should do it taking the right measures to minimize risks to yourself and others and maximize effect and this is what this essential guide is all about.
Before we begin, remember that this is a guide about MAGICAL ACTION (spells, divination, petitions etc.) and that I am not encouraging you to engage in physical violence in any way, shape or form. After all, it is a widely shared opinion that magic is just woo woo nonsense, isn’t it? So it’s not like it’s going to hurt anyone, I’m glad we have this cleared up. Now, let’s get back to our guide.
- Rule number one: do NOT aim aggressive spells directly at the top dog. They usually have extensive protection (if only through the adoration of the masses) and this kind of spells will only work if they have an enormous amount of power behind them (no, a single practitioner, no matter how skilled, is not going to cut it) and if you have good links to the target, something that is especially hard to get for this kind of people. This is the kind of spell that is very likely to rebound in a bad way.
- Does the previous point mean that you are never to target the top dog with your spells in any way? Well, it depends. Generally speaking, having an effect on them is going to be hard but you can have more luck if, instead of using an aggressive spell, you devise something that is not going to be “recognized” as an attack at all and if you can empower it with the feelings and the intention of a great amount of people (this is one of those cases in which quantity DOES matter).
- Study your target: what pushes their buttons? What are their vanities? The things that make them react without thinking much because they HAVE to? Their preconceived notions? A spell that exploits these existent deep beliefs and entrenched behaviors is not going to be recognized as a threat and is more likely to succeed, you just have to be careful to construct it with the right goal in mind.
For instance, a narcissistic leader that is pathologically convinced that everybody loves them and that they can do no wrong is prone to embrace a suggestion that they need to do a certain thing and that everybody will love them for it: you can use an influence spell to steer them towards the one action you know that the vast majority of people will not forgive or approve of or a rash decision that could lead to their ruin.For instance, let’s imagine that someone that wanted to oppose Napoleon and was aware of his arrogance and impetuousness, wanted him to try to invade Russia in winter because doing so would likely bring to his defeat. This person could have distributed magically-enhanced pamphlets in which they suggested that Boney was too afraid of the tsar’s army to try such a move. When it comes to political magic, propaganda can often be the stem of the arrow, while the spell that steers its direction is the point. - Consider devising a double-faced spell, especially if you want to rely on the power coming from big groups of people and you want your spell to go “viral”, in some way. This means that the spell should have an inner structure that is known just to you or a restricted number of people and a simpler, “public” face that is shared with a wider audience.This public face can be overtly magical in nature (like an essential spell or a sigil that is shared with other like-minded practitioners).
Keep in mind that if you choose to give your spell an openly magical public face, you should evaluate the nature of this face very carefully. Magical practitioners already have a bad reputation and the negative repercussions brought on this community by an openly aggressive spell could easily outweigh any potential advantage.An oftentimes wiser option would be to opt for a public face that can seem entirely mundane. For instance, memes are a great way to spread this kind of hidden intentions.
This approach has many advantages, among which are keeping the real engine of the spell secret from your adversaries (thus, harder to counter-act) and avoiding the focus of the spell getting blurred by “too many cooks in the kitchen” while still benefiting from the horsepower of the masses.
- If you are good at being devious, you can consider infiltrating the places most frequented by the kind of people that support your adversaries and devise the spell in such a way that THEY will be spreading it among themselves.
This is especially good if your goal has to do with influencing them and the structures they are present in. Just by way of an example, for instance, sell or distribute merch that has been enchanted in a specific way at public events or share seemingly friendly (and enchanted) memes in certain digital spaces. - Remember that even the biggest top dogs usually start crumbling from the feet. Look at their entourage. Who is bitter and thinks that they deserve better? Who is having qualms? Who is unstable and prone to act without thinking? Who has other interests in mind? These minions almost always have significantly lower defenses shielding them from magical action and they are thus easier to target with direct spells. Study their place and function within the structure of power and strategize.
- Appealing to “Justice” is a double-edged sword, especially when you are dealing with spirits and deities from different cultures and historical times: a Babylonian deity would likely see nothing wrong with an all-powerful sovereign seeking to annihilate their opposition. Make sure to frame your requests in such a way that the spirits you are appealing to have a dog in the fight (eg. a deity that is known as a patron/patroness of foreigners will often gladly offer their help in magical actions aimed at protecting migrants).
- Do not focus exclusively on aggressive magic. Always keep in mind that you can use sorcery to support alternative candidates (you don’t have to love them, they just need to be better than the alternative) and to protect and empower individuals, organizations and groups of people that can keep up the fight.
- Divination is your friend, especially with spells tackling the kind of stuff where unforeseen consequences can cause massive damage.
Use divinatory techniques to explore different avenues and to receive guidance on the kind of action that is more likely to achieve the desired goal with the best net positive outcome. If you are not skilled at divination, you can ask a trusted person to do this for you. Keep in mind that every action (magical or otherwise) has many potential consequences, so the trick is to be responsible enough to consider them seriously, keeping your ethics at the forefront of your mind as you do so, but avoid getting paralyzed by them.
And, above all, remember that being angry is fine (and sometimes even required), as long as it doesn’t make you stupid, hateful or cruel. There’s already too much of that in this world.
Are the baby witches confused?
A conversation that made me think
Last week a friend of my daughter (they are both 15 years old) came over to have lunch at our house and hang with my daughter for the afternoon.
While we were eating lunch, the topic of weird interests came out and the friend confessed she has a deep interest in magic and witchcraft. I guess she somewhat knew about me and what I do from my daughter (plus the altar with candles and bones smack dab in the middle of the house is kind of a hint) and was gently fishing to see if I could be of help.
Obviously, I am always happy to chat about magic and I was genuinely curious to find out what picked her interest and where this new generation is going to look for answers and guidance and what I discovered really made me think that, contrary to what we might think, these young witches probably have a rougher start ahead of them than we did.
My (debauched) adolescence
I have been into magic for as long as I can remember, even in my pre-school years, but I started seriously looking for material to educate myself when I was around 14 and I had the possibility to go to the library by myself or to order shady books at the bookstore and get glared at by the shop assistants. It was the dawn of the new millennium and in Italy witchcraft, even in its softest and more spiritualized forms, was really NOT mainstream.
This meant that the path to magic was really shrouded in mystery and rife with obstacles to be overcome. Like in a modern fairytale, inexperienced and passionate weirdos had to seek the few books that were available in our language and were usually not even immediately available on the shelves, we had to do tentative searches on the newborn internet (devoutly waiting the 15 to 20 minutes that were needed to charge each page) to find some scraps of information and seek like-minded individuals.
I remember doing stuff that would horrify many contemporary parents: going out to meetings with people I had never met before in person (almost all of them considerably older than me), traveling to distant cities and navigating them with a scrappy map at 15 just to attend an event; having your documents taken by police because someone had whispered in their ears that there were devil-worshippers doing all kinds of evil stuff in that one place over there.
A wild and confusing path
It was wild and funny and very often confusing because most of the time none of us had any precise idea of what we were doing but we were on a quest: the magic was there, somewhere just barely out of reach, and we were determined to find it.
I can still recognize the people that went through the same formative process because of their “can do” attitude and the tendency to work hard to build the kind of magical path that suits them instead of just waiting for it to fall into your lap. I don’t think that’s because we had our shit more together but simply because at the time the number of people that had any real training was extremely low (like, you wouldn’t need all your fingers to keep track of it kind of low) and so we found out the hard way that the vast majority of the people that were presenting themselves as teachers and guides were just making it up as they went along, just like we did.
Obviously, there are also some cons that come from that kind of background and one of the main ones is that many people that grew in that environment are not good at team work and community building: we are, as a rule, very used to doing things our own way and any kind of restriction or necessary compromise makes us bolt like a testy horse.
Do young witches really have it easier?
I know I am reminiscing and I probably sound like an old witch yelling at clouds but there’s a point in this so stick with me a little longer, if you can.
I have always thought that young witches nowadays have it easier because, from my perspective, the sheer abundance of publications, training programs, live events and even freely available material is basically what I would have killed to have when I was in my teens. And while it’s true that a good chunck of it is not exactly high quality, the good stuff is there and it’s relatively easy to find it. Even in my own country, the number of highly respected people with serious experience is not in the single digits anymore.
A short talk that changed my view
However, the short conversation I had with this one girl turned everything around for me, just like that.
It was not a surprise to find out that she is confused (weren’t we all?) and that she started by trying to evoke demons (didn’t we all?) but the thing that shocked me most of all was her complete inability to find good sources that could give her a sense of direction.
This smart girl was not dazed by the over-abundance of paths and possibilities, she was genuinely unaware that they existed at all.
Her introduction to witchcraft? A couple of dude-bros with a cringy youtube channel on paranormal stuff that purported themselves as experts of the occult (and if I sound judgemental on this I am completely at peace with it).
The Almighty Algorithm is an evil spell
How can it be? Haven’t we done all this work also because we wanted those who would come after us to have it easier?
We talked a little more.
I discovered something that I already suspected but that was never presented to me so clearly, which is the almost complete impermeability between online platforms in terms of how information is shared and received by different age groups. These new generations are very much used to the here and now and the idea of being on a quest doesn’t seem to galvanize them: they are not going to get excited about scavenging for the good stuff, and the kind of apprenticeship we used to dream about is likely to make them feel either bored or like it’s too much hassle, anyway.
And that’s not because they are not smart or because they don’t want to work hard (that is something that only people who have not deigned to talk with someone under the age of 25 in a decade would believe) but because online tech giants have been fucking us over for a long time now, messing with our brains, especially the way in which we access and elaborate information, and, even if everyone who has an internet connection is affected, the generations that were born after social media were a thing are disproportionally affected.
Defeated by a WitchTok hashtag
However, I discovered something about myself, as well. When this girl asked me where she could find reliable sources and material I found myself not knowing exactly what to say, because I perceived in that moment that the kind of stuff I routinely recommend was not at all made with the needs of this generation in mind and that I had not felt the need to keep up with WitchTok or the various influencers around, even if just to get an idea of which were the good ones of the bunch. Although we strived to do the exact opposite it seems that in a way we have let these young witches down and I am the last one to be able to cast stones since the very idea of making a TikTok video makes me break in hives.
Witchcraft and digital clutter
It seems that witchcraft is now, like reliable news, hidden by the sheer over-abundance of digital clutter and by algorithms that will push only the kind of stuff that serves the cannibalistic brand of capitalism that is devouring our democracies and our discernment at warp speed; and while being hidden is the natural state of witchcraft, this truth that once sparked stories of discovery is now being replaced by a plastic-like cacophony of entertainment that makes you believe that’s all there is. The fairytale doesn’t even get started.
There are no answers to be found in this article, only questions.
(And no: I won’t be doing a TikTok video anytime soon).
[Main image credits: frame from the anime “WitchWatch”]
Just do the spell. (And keep your mouth shut).
Many of us are at least passingly familiar with what are usually called the four pillars of Witchcraft or, more recently, the Witches’ Pyramid: To Know, To Will, To Dare, To Be Silent.
In the era of social media and of frantic attempts to catch people’s increasingly fleeting attention, the final part of this invitation, first uttered by occultist Eliphas Levi in Trascendental Magic, tends to fall flat. Silence, my dear Eliphas, doesn’t pay much nowadays, unless it goes with a catchy TikTok dance and a cat filter.
Eliphas, I’m sure, would have fit right in.
The hidden strength of silence
I have long subscribed to the idea that witchcraft, by definition, can’t have laws in a prescriptive sense but just long-held observations on what tends to work and what doesn’t and this rings true for one of the exhortations contained in the pyramid: to keep silent regarding one’s own magical work.
While I don’t think openly disclosing the aim and structure of a spell before it has reached its goal is always going to end badly (and some types of seduction spells or curses might even capitalize on the effect of forewarning one’s target), it is fair to say that it’s not a generally advisable thing to do in terms of efficacy.
If it works, who cares?
As an art that is mostly concerned with making things work, no matter how pretty or messy they might look or how much logical sense they seem to make, witchcraft doesn’t require lengthy philosophical explanations on why certain things, as a general rule, seem to work better than other or speculations on the reasons behind a distinctive feeling shared by many that choosing a certain way to do something simply feels to align properly with the forces at play. If it works, who cares, right?
However, many sorcerers and witches seem to be quite nerdy fellows (should we blame this on RPGs? Or on the ancient and cross-cultural fascination with books containing forbidden magic?), thus we tend to enjoy immensely trying to peek behind the curtain and get a glimpse of what gets magic ticking, of the inner and mysterious workings of the universe.
Fragility and over-exposure of spells
Most practitioners I have discussed this subject with have reported feeling like a spell, especially immediately before and after being cast, needs to be protected from over-exposure. Like a still frail shoot peeping out from the soil, or a temperamental soufflé rising in the oven, it feels like a newly born spell could be killed by overwhelming attention: every time its name is uttered is an over-generous watering or an anxious adjusting of the temperature.
Personally, I have come to the conclusion that a spell is a creature, and like all other creatures, and especially those that are not firmly anchored to a physical body, it can be swayed and shaped by other creatures’ opinions, feelings and expectations about them. This process, as any caring and attentive parent could tell you, is particularly relevant when it comes to creatures that are very young and have yet to find the shape they wish to inhabit in this world.
Ideas, projects, and magical boundaries
Have you ever kept a new idea or a budding project to yourself until you felt it was solid enough to withstand the attention of others and the vagaries of chance without getting warped by them? I am sure you have and that you can understand what I’m talking about.
Let the spell do what it must
When a spell comes into this world it is imbued with adamantine purpose and precise focus: it does not need to stop and eavesdrop on everything that is being said about it, to worry that the form it’s taking does not conform to the one others are expecting of it or to get confused by the conflicting emotions that are thrown at it.
We want our spell to take the shape that will work best in the moment and to sail proudly, or to saunter saucily, towards its goal. We certainly don’t want it to get overwhelmed with existential confusion and crippling social anxiety: we humans are already way too good at that on our own.
Silence as protection — even today
However, there are other reasons to observe silence in magic, aside from concerns about efficacy. Reasons that we may have thought would not be relevant anymore in contemporary democratic societies. But they are.
The assassination of Charlie Kirk (if you don’t know who he was I envy you, google him at your peril) has caused a stir in the witchcraft community last week, when, shortly after the news about his death came out, an article from a feminist online media platform dated to a few days prior started circulating on social media. In the article the writers described the process of getting in touch with witches offering their services on Etsy and paying them to curse Charlie Kirk. The whole thing had a tongue-in-cheek tone, sprinkled with a hopeful undertone of “Eh, what if it works?”.
I can’t link the article here because, after the initial backlash, it has been swiftly removed from Jezebel’s website and the whole thing has been addressed in a public statement.
Why silence still matters in modern times
I am not here to talk about Charlie Kirk, to discuss his death or to spout a few circumstantial and superficial phrases about political violence, instead I want to use this example to talk about why witchcraft is best performed in silence, even in contemporary “western” democracies.
The fallout after the Jezebel article perfectly encapsulates the potential unwanted consequences of being a little too open about what’s brewing in your cauldron: previously unconcerned people start questioning if it should be legal to sell spells at all, atavistic (and never really tamed) fear starts stirring even in the souls of staunch rationalists and religious fundamentalists are giddy with the smell of golden opportunities.
Deep-rooted fears and cautious minds
No matter how much the modern man or woman might swear that they consider magic to be just a kind of particularly colorful psychology or, at worst, a delusion that grips people with sub-par intellectual abilities, there is something deeply embedded in them that is conditioned to react to it with a healthy dose of caution.
If you don’t want to take my word for it, just try and ask someone if they would give you a personal concern of theirs so that you can curse them. You will find that precious few will do it and that the majority of those who dare are motivated by the desire to prove themselves above such things than by genuine unconcern, like a toddler that grits their teeth before a vaccination jab and later swears they were never afraid at all.
Magic still lives on the margins
Despite the efforts to present it as an entirely harmless pastime powered by pure (and sometimes exceedingly saccharine) spirituality, the most progressive democracies are not truly ready to embrace magic, and if witchcraft as a religion (in its many variations) has found some acceptance, the practice of witchcraft is still solidly in the fringes.
Reminding the public at large exactly WHY that ancient part of their brain shies away from what we do is not a good idea, and in the current political climate it gives religious fundamentalists in power the perfect excuse to unleash on us heretics the level of discrimination they have always dreamed of.
Go public if you can, but keep the lid on your cauldron
Being out of the broom closet (if your society, your job and your family make it possible) is a wonderful thing and I am not at all discouraging you from doing it, here I am writing about witchcraft in my very public website with my name all over it, but spells that are meant to achieve their goal shouldn’t be crafted in an open-kitchen witch lair.
Activism vs Witchcraft (and a final word)
“What about the activism-like type of spells that are supposed to be as public and widespread as possible?” I can well imagine some of you asking. Well, the fact is that activism and witchcraft are two different arts that work in different ways and it pains me to say that the vast majority of spells that are devised to be shared far and wide are not very good, magically speaking.
Personally, I find that even public spell campaigns like these need to have a secret inner skeleton to maneuver them if they are to have a chance to actually hit their target: the widespread attention is the fuel but something that is not visible to the public needs to be at the helm. You may say that it’s somewhat sneaky to conceal from people who should be allies the inner core of a magical work and you might be right about that but, hey, I’m a witch: what did you expect?
Look at your life and at the world around you to decide, with clarity, wisdom, a hint of mischief and a deep sense of responsibility, what spells you are going to create.
Do it. Then shut up about it.
The trojan horse of the Sacred Feminine
Lucrezia and Cristina: two stories, one single trap
“Lucrezia is a sacred Priestess. Her body is the temple of the Goddess, and the source of her power lies in her ability to create life and in the gift of receptivity.
With wisdom, she recognizes her role in sacred alchemy and guides her partner toward the discovery of the divine in nature. Her Yoni is the gateway through which the sacred flows: the path to the authentic road that leads to union with the whole.
Lucrezia, Priestess of the Goddess. Unfortunately, all the other women envy her—but that’s what happens when you’re too, too special.
Her partner uses his strength to protect her: he lays his sword at her service and at the service of the Goddess.”
It’s a beautiful story, isn’t it?
It makes us imagine a woman full of power, dressed in flowing garments caressed by the breeze, her enchantments carried by the wind: a truly magical being.
Like a fairy lady, she glides through the world, barely touching the ground with her feet, while her consort’s strong arm clears her path and shields her from danger. It sounds like a fairytale.
Now let’s try this one:
“Cristina is an Angel of the Hearth. Her body is in service to God, and she glorifies Him by bearing children within the sacred bond of marriage.
With wisdom, she acknowledges her role in the natural order willed by God, and the sweetness of her submission to her husband brings them both closer to the divine and fills them with divine glory.
Cristina, angel of the hearth. Cristina, who can’t remember the last time she had time for herself—or an orgasm.
Her husband’s duty is to protect her: he is the head of the family, for the good of all and in accordance with God’s plan.”
It stirs a completely different feeling, doesn’t it?
Before our eyes, we see a poor medieval maid, under her husband’s control, crushed by a patriarchal culture that sees her value only in her ability to bear children and serve unpaid domestic labor.
We feel both compassion and a tinge of irritation toward Cristina—we want to ask her what she’s waiting for to wake up and recognize the deception that has been imposed on her.
We’d like to give her a friendly kick in the backside to push her, once and for all, away from that damned hearth.
The reality is that Lucrezia and Cristina could very well be the same person.
Two sides of the same coin
Their worldviews and beliefs about balance within a couple aren’t so different after all:
– Both identify their fertility as their primary value in the eyes of the divine;
– Both willingly accept becoming passive and “receptive” in order to align with what they perceive as a law of nature;
– Both believe that only by fulfilling a specific role—defined by their biological sex—can they draw closer to the divine.
The truth is: Lucrezia and Cristina ARE the same person.
They’ve just been duped by two different kinds of rhetoric.
Each probably judges and mocks the other. But if they stripped off the romantic robes of the priestess and the meek garments of the devoted wife—if they let the names of deities and sacred verses fall to the ground—and met each other naked in an empty room,
they would see their reflection in one another’s eyes.
The feminist struggle and its vulnerabilities
We’ve watched with joy the reawakening of the sacred feminine over the past 50 years, and many of us have given—and continue to give—our contribution.
We have proudly joined hands with the feminist movement to shout that our bodies are not property, not vessels of shame, not mere incubators.
We’ve claimed the right to break free from stereotypes designed solely to control us: the right to be women in a thousand different ways.
We’ve reread history and discovered that a different way to organize society is possible.
In doing so, as is natural, we’ve stumbled. Sometimes we’ve gone too far, or we’ve invented new myths out of nothing—or almost nothing—to replace the old ones.
And that’s okay. It’s part of the process.
The Sacred Feminine and spiritual marketing
Like everything in consumer culture, spirituality also has its trends. And it’s not hard to notice that we’re once again importing the latest craze from across the ocean: sacred sexuality in the divine couple, in all its fashionable variations.
By itself, this isn’t a bad thing: trends, though fleeting, allow us to explore topics from a new perspective. And often, once the fluffier aspects fade, what remains is a meaningful, authentic contribution.
Certainly, there’s a lot of important ground to cover and explore when it comes to sacred sexuality.
The trap of the new spirituality
What’s disturbing is seeing how stereotypes and dynamics typical of the worst patriarchal culture are reemerging—after a superficial cosmetic makeover—as something new, fresh, and inspiring.
To keep Cristina in her place, the system needed paternalism from her superiors and the threat of hell.
To keep Lucrezia in line, all it takes is a fairytale: that she is special, that only she can lead man to the divine—through her natural role.
It’s about stroking her vanity and infantilism.
All to keep her from seeing that, deep down inside the glittery packaging, it’s still the same old crap.
Is that really all it takes to deceive us, after all these years of struggle?
Is that all it takes to throw away the efforts and sacrifices of our foremothers?
The Sacred Feminine in light and shadow
The sacred feminine is receptivity and the gift of life,
but it’s also Sekhmet and her insatiable thirst for blood.
It’s Kali, dancing with such fury that she risks destroying the world.
It’s Artemis, tearing Actaeon to pieces with her dogs for daring to look at her with lust.
It’s Amaterasu, who brings civilization to humanity and protects them with her radiant light.
There is a heart of darkness in the sacred feminine movement.
And it has a name we’ve known for thousands of years.
Let’s be careful which paths we’re taking—
because ending up once again chained to the hearth and reduced to wombs with legs is not the future we want for our daughters.
Even if it’s dressed in flowing robes and sprinkled with sacred glitter.