| | | A "witchlet" who goes to witch camp in the summer. (Light photo by Stacey Solie) | |
| Though witches are still commonly thought of as wicked, shriveled women riding on broomsticks, the practice of witchcraft has grown in both visibility and popularity over the past 50 years, and many of the old stereotypes are falling away.
Wiccans, those who formally practice witchcraft, gained legal protection under the First Amendment for their nature-based religion in 1985. Wicca is also recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt religion. With the rise of books like Harry Potter and the TV series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” it is becoming more and more socially acceptable to openly be a witch, or to “come out of the broom closet,” as many witches like to say. Witches can even send their kids to Wiccan summer camp, where they practice as “Witchlets” and read tarot cards on parent’s night.
Last month, Wiccans earned the right to have the pentacle, a five-pointed star that serves as a symbol of their faith, engraved onto tombstones in state military cemeteries in Nevada, although the Arlington National Cemetery has yet to grant approval. In September, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit against the National Cemetery Association to force a decision.
“They allow a six-pointed star, but not a five-pointed star? That’s crazy,” said one former Wiccan teacher who was shopping at Spirit Matters in Inverness this weekend and did not want her name published.
The six-pointed star is the Jewish star of David, one of thirty-eight religious symbols that do have federal military approval, including the Christian cross, the Muslim crescent, the nine-pointed star for Baha’i, the Mormon angel, and even a sign for atheism.
Prejudice has even come from the top levels of government. President George W. Bush questioned the ruling of a judge who protected the rights of enlisted pagans to perform rituals on army bases in 2000. He said he didn’t agree that it was a religion and that the judge should “rethink his decision.” In 2001 Jerry Fallwell said that pagans, abortionists and homosexuals “helped” the terrorist attacks on 9/11 happen.
Some witches say that fear and prejudice are unsurprising. “There’s been 500 years of propaganda and bad press. Witches were a convenient scapegoat, just like “terrorists” are today,” said Starhawk, a well-known witch in Sebastopol who has written several books on the subject. “The [Catholic] church waged a war—a physical war, and a propaganda war, and we still haven’t completely recovered,” she said.
Fallingstar
Wiccans believe in both gods and goddesses, and celebrate holidays based on the changing seasons and the lunar cycle. Many of the beliefs are rooted in European pagan traditions, but witches also see a parallel between themselves and the role of the shaman in tribal cultures.
Cerridwen Fallingstar, of San Geronimo, first learned about witchcraft when she worked as a reporter in southern California and was assigned to cover the prosecution of a fortune teller.
It was 1975, and fortune-telling was illegal. “Only ministers were allowed to predict the future,” she said. Raised agnostic, she yearned for a spiritual outlet where she would not have to give up her intellect.
She was intrigued with the women she met through covering the trial and began the process of becoming a witch herself through reading, apprenticeship, and practicing spells and rituals.
Fallingstar is part of a coven, or a group of 13 or fewer women who gather every few weeks to chant, pray, and perform rituals and spells. There are a lot of covens at work in West Marin, she said. “You can’t throw a stone without hitting one,” she said of West Marin witches.
Spells like prayers
It is the ideas of casting spells and using magic that puts some people on edge, but Wiccans say that spells are similar to Christian prayers.
“A spell is an energy directed toward an intention. It’s just like when Christians pray for someone who’s sick, that’s exactly what we do when we’re spell-casting,” said Starhawk.
Wiccans are strongly discouraged from using spells to harm, she said.
“Just like any kind of power, you can use it for positive or negative. What you send out returns on you three times over,” she said.
“The basic beliefs are that the earth is sacred, our bodies are sacred, as are all the other denizens of the earth—animals, plants and people,” she said.
One Wiccan reluctantly admitted that she once came close to casting a “justice” spell on someone who had lied about her and gotten her fired from her job. She mixed olive oil with an incense resin called “Dragon’s blood” and set the mixture in a vial outside near the picture of a goddess.
“If I had followed through, my intention was to put some of that oil on the lock on her car, so that every time she inserted her key she would go through it,” she said. The next morning, the vial had tipped over and the oil had drained away, and she decided against casting the spell. She emphasized that casting that spell would not have been the right thing to do.
Love spells are also generally discouraged within Wiccans. “Love spells are the most dangerous spells in the world,” said one former Wiccan.
“You’re manipulating their lives. If it works there will be hell to pay down the road because that person did not make that choice,” she said.
“I’ve had people ask me to put a spell on people to kill them. I don’t do that. I say ‘Are you nuts?’ ”
Wiccans have a guiding ethic that says, “An it harm none, do what ye will.”
The most common invocations and spells are for more everyday problems. “If you’re studying for a test, and you’re a witch, you might invoke the air to help your intellect remember what you’re studying,” said Urania, a witch in San Rafael. If someone wanted to improve their relationship, they might carve a heart into a candle. “Spells are physical prayers,” she said.
Spells are really just altered consciousness, said Starhawk. “To me, it’s not so much about power, as developing states of awareness that everybody has. It’s a matter of learning to develop them and acknowledge them,” she said.
Still dangerous
The image of witchcraft in the popular mindset has come a long way since the time of the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem witch trials, when thousands of women were persecuted, prosecuted, tortured and even burned for their beliefs.
It can still be dangerous in certain areas to openly share witchy ways. “I have friends who absolutely cannot be known as a witch. It would threaten their lives,” said Urania. She said it’s most dangerous in the south and some parts of the Midwest, but here in Marin County she feels relatively safe. She sends her 10-year-old daughter to witch summer camp in Mendocino, and has never felt that being a witch has affected her ability to get jobs or keep friends.
At home she displays alters in several rooms: one for ancestors, decorated with photographs of dead loved ones, a skull (taken from an old haunted mansion), and pumpkins; one for water, with seashells; and one for air, symbolized by a jar of feathers.
Urania also keeps an old-fashioned birch broom, which she got at Cost-Plus. Witches don’t fly on their brooms, she said. She uses hers to ceremonially sweep the house once a year.
The Spiral Dance
Next weekend, covens all over the nation will meet to celebrate Samhain [sow-hen], the witch’s equivalent to Halloween and to the Day of the Dead celebrated by Latin Americans.
For witches, Samhain acknowledges the coming of darkness and the end of the harvest season when farm animals are slaughtered. It’s also a time to remember those who passed away the year before.
“It’s a time when the veil is thin,” said Starhawk. Samhain is also considered the witch’s new year.
This Saturday, anywhere from five hundred to two thousand Bay Area witches will meet at the Kezar Pavillion in San Francisco to partake in the Spiral Dance, a larger Samhain celebration, started by Starhawk, that’s been going on every year since 1979.
After calling on the four elements of air, water, fire and earth, and the four directions, participants will link arms and form a spiral, a symbol of regeneration.
The dancing and chanting creates an energy, said Starhawk. “This year it’s about turning the wheel and moving our society away from corruption and back towards creativity, courage, healing and justice.”
As for the resurgence of witches in the popular media, like Nicole Kidman’s role in the movie “Bewitched” or the runaway popularity of Harry Potter, Starhawk sees it as a good sign.
“I think the popularity of those things shows how much people have a hunger for a world that’s alive and speaking and communicating,” she said. “There’s a hunger for enchantment and magic.” |
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