Happy Halloween everyone! Your local coven is busy getting into the spirit of the season: carving pumpkins, brainstorming costume ideas, hanging out with our favorite black cat, and think- ing a lot about witches (past, present and future). Many languages and cultures have their own conceptualization of what it means to be a witch, what witchcraft is, and unique words to talk about these topics. I am writing this article as someone who grew up in the United States and as someone who speaks English as my only language. Thus, this piece is centered around my personal experiences and may not resonate with everyone and their relationship with witches.
Witches are people, historically women, who call upon magic spells and spirits to bring about change. Many historic witches such as Catherine Deshayes and Ursula Shipton, provided abortion services and other natural remedies, midwifery services, poisonings, and hexes to those who re- quested them. These services not only provided their clients with an enhanced sense of control over their bodies but provided them with financial capital giving them a newfound sense of power in a patriarchal society. Contrastingly, many historic witches were those who were deemed unfit by society. This may have been because of a disability they were born with or their disinterest in conforming to societal norms. Nonetheless, witches are people, typically women, who challenge institutional power whether that be by their line of work or pure existence, which I think is quite beautiful.
I think this definition goes against the ideas many of us had about witches while growing up. I was an avid watcher of the show, “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” as well as movies like “Hocus Pocus” throughout my childhood. I cannot help but believe that these representations of witches were not only formative in my view of witches but also formative in my view of femininity. In “Sabrina the Teenage Witch,” viewers are shown a cute, spunky and somewhat naive teenager who learns of her powers on her 16th birthday. Throughout the show, she must learn how to use her magic properly and contain her power to a certain degree. This resonates with discourses in body theory which explain the idea of the female body and spirit being “unruly” or something that must be controlled or contained. Contrastingly, “Hocus Pocus” depicts older, uglier and fatter witches who live in isolation from society. The undertones and juxtaposition of these depictions communicate to viewers that women who challenge society or hold some sort of power are a threat, old, ugly, fat and lonely. It tells viewers that girls must maintain their innocence and adolescence so as not to become something terrifying throughout womanhood. Furthermore, the practices of witchcraft challenge colonial methods of legitimizing knowledge by connecting with the spiritual world beyond the church and beyond what we consider to be “science.” The formulation of the “witch” may then be thought to scare women into maintaining their current social order and the historic treatment of witches may be thought to be very colonial.
Witches have historically been persecuted and killed in events such as the Salem Witch Trials but there are still many who practice witchcraft today and continue to challenge institutional powers. There has been some growth of the witch community on social media platforms such as Tik-Tok but this is something I feel wary of. While I believe witchcraft should be accessible to everyone interested in learning about it, we must be careful to not commodify and coopt this avenue of radical thought to fit within the demands of capitalism. We must be critical of all depictions and representations of witches.
Let’s continue to talk about witches in a way that recognizes their power, strength, and historic marginalization. I believe that witches are beautiful, powerful, sexy and inspirational. After all, I live with 10 of the best ones.