The Truth About Magic: Debunking the Witches of Instagram
There is a movement brewing all over the world- a movement of Witches rising. This is undeniable as we see this ubiquitous amidst current pop-culture memes, hashtags, books, tv series- the list goes on and on. In October, New York Times writer Jessica Bennett wrote an article entitled ‘When Did Everyone Become a Witch?’ where the hashtag movement #witchesofinstagram was cited alongside the unique plethora of Witchy books that have been published in the past year. The author even went as far to say this is the ‘Season of the Witch’. Women are beginning to reclaim this word, bringing it out of the light with all its complex and derogatory stigma. Yet there is a power there, a power many fear. Women are beginning to tap this power. But many for the wrong reasons as the example of what a Modern Witch currently is within our popular culture is not holding to the true integrity, healing power, and divinely feminine nature of a true Witch.
The problem with the current Witch ‘movement’ is that it is still hanging onto the juvenile ideation of what a Witch really is. Anybody who has ever been into any kind of mysticism will have most likely dabbled in books about Wicca and Paganism, I know I did when I was 16. What you will find inside of these books are complex chants, recipes for spells, and a kind of magic that someone who doesn’t quite have a real hold or knowledge of the Spirit world would do to try and manipulate reality to fit their own needs. There is a problem here that is not being fully addressed when it comes to Witches, and that is the dark box that feminine wisdom was relegated to amidst a patriarchal ruling order. A box these ‘Witches’ still find themselves operating inside of.
A true Witch, a mature Witch, and a Witch that is in full command of herself and her power has no need to cast spells or join a coven. These are outdated structures that are centered around the so-called ‘dark arts’, exactly what the ruling culture has believed a Witch to be; a woman that bends reality and practices a kind of magic to fit her will. Many believe that this ‘Witch’ is in alignment with the satanic arts to do so. What is perpetuated on the #witchesofinstagram page and by so many so-called ‘Witches’ is infantile Witch energy, that is still in alignment with this identity. The problem with this is that these so-called ‘Witches’ are putting ‘hexs’ and ‘spells’ and using their ‘psychic power’ to do harm to others, and this is simply giving true Wise Women and real Witches a bad name.
The term ‘Witch’ is definitely coming out of its aeon’s old closet, but its energy is still made up of the cheesiest memes and spellcasting ideas that keep the modern Witch immature and sophomoric. I'm here to debunk this identity and call it out for what it really is, adolescent at best. I say this as someone that actually teaches women and men for that matter how to truly tap their full-fledged Witch Power. I do this not as someone that uses spells over a cauldron to get the boy I like to want me, or to manifest $100,000 (as they did in the classic teenage movie ‘The Craft’) but as someone that uses the highest guiding principle of Love and Healing to enhance and uplift the energy of this planet. By aligning with this flow, these things can naturally come to you, but it is a matter of getting out of your own way to allow it to come. That means relinquishing attachment and grasping, and opening up to what the Universe truly has in store for you, not what your human ego believes you absolutely need. Now this is the true definition of a Witch, and anyone that argues otherwise is still acting out some ‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch’ fantasy.
Let's talk about Magic. In contemporary folk-lore the evil and good Witch for that matter both have the ability to create something from nothing. Usually these women have a magic wand and say a few words or wriggle their nose as Samantha in Bewitched did and something is transformed right before your very eyes, like magic. Magic has been defined in so many words in our modern era as something that has no ‘rational’ way of coming about, so therefore it has been seen as ‘supernatural’ or if someone yields it, they have intrinsic ‘powers’. Witches have been placed in this category but have classically been seen for using this magical power for the manipulation of material reality towards a dark outcome, at least that is how the mainstream patriarchal culture has seen it. None of this is actually true to what magic really is, nor does it highlight the truth about Witches.
You know how people talk about ‘going with the flow’? Most people who are control freaks hate this term. I know because I used to be one. What the hell is the ‘flow’ anyway? Well the flow is where the magic happens, literally. There is a guiding, benevolent force that moves this universe. And it's made up of the energy that makes our hearts beat, that leaves birds chirping, that makes the grass grow, the sun shine, and the energy that moves the planets. We have lost touch with this force that is outside of science and religion. It is the pure, natural, realm of Spirit and this my friends is the flow that the mature Witch interacts with and honors daily. It is an art to become in tune with this flow, so in tune that you can feel it's ever so subtle guidance and allow it to guide you through the material world. This benevolent flow works not through our rational mind, but through our irrational emotion. Yes, emotion, the core of what makes a woman ‘illegitimate’ amidst a ruling patriarchal world order. Yet, it is the emotion that holds the empathy, and the empathy is the gateway to one's intuition. Honing and cultivating your emotional body is the gateway to truly honoring one's full Witch Power. It's not putting a hex on the white patriarchy as the #witchesofinstagram or Pam Grossman the self-proclaimed Witch who wrote the NYT Article, “Here’s What Being a Witch Really Means” in which she applauds these hex’s. No, it’s actually living in alignment with the flow and beginning to TRUST in something that one cannot see, prove, or measure.
Magic you see is based in cultivating a true, living breathing connection to this invisible force (outside of any religious context and on your OWN terms) and beginning to trust in it. Simple as that. Magic after all, is creating ‘something’ out of ‘nothing’. But instead of giving the Witch all the credit for the the rudimentary ‘spells’ the immature Witch casts, the mature Witch actually aligns herself with a force greater than herself and then understands herself well enough to be able to know the cues Spirit is giving her through her emotional body (intuition). She simply serves as a channel and holy servant for the Divine, holding to a kind of spiritual trust that we are not entirely familiar with in this extreme age of science and technology. Holding space for something one feels guided towards and trusting that it will materialize is what gives someone their true power. The reason why this power is unique, fully realized, and mature is because it is honoring and reclaiming the realm of the Divine Feminine.
And that is precisely what the mature Witch reclaims, the realm of the Divine Feminine. This is a realm and an energy that has been incredibly diminished over the past few thousand years. This the realm of emotion, intuition, empathy, nurturance, rest, quiet, etc. Our world has become so inundated with rationality that we have legitimized the greed, wars, and insensitivity that is the engine that runs this planet, especially the USA. The Divine Feminine must rise to counter this destruction of the Earth and it starts with women and men beginning to reclaim their full fledged Witch Power; a power that is in alignment with the highest guiding energies of Love, and becoming sensitive enough to sense which direction this flow is guiding them towards. This will no doubt create an earth of more empathy, interconnection, and honor of all life, and if that idea isn’t truly magical, I don’t know what is.
