Young witches

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”]