“A witch is born out of the true hungers of her time.”
— Ray Bradbury
January 6 2022
The gist:
‘The Witch’ has for far too long been cast as a political figure in the man-made world, even though “they were typically peasant women with no political power.” They were vilified, blamed, and “were hunted and burned at the stake for centuries, “as scapegoats for everything from shipwrecks to famine” by “powerful men” to “distract from their own failures.”
Christian monotheists demonized them for claiming powers on par with gods, and indeed possibly for their very similarity to Jesus, who also healed the sick, cast spells, and placed hexes. The line between a witch and a prophet, perhaps, has always been gender.
Centuries of misogyny have “yoked the word witch to what women, in particular, have been taught to fear: becoming an outcast, an old maid, or “crazy.” However, “witches have long seen “the toxicity of patriarchal late capitalism and long since hit the unsubscribe button.”
Taschen’s latest book on the topic, is made up of hundreds of evocative photos, sketches, and paintings, (“Photographs of the W.I.T.C.H. (Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell) share page space with Albrecht Dürer engravings of witches in the nude”), enlivening essays on the history and meaning of witches and witchcraft, primers on witchcraft rituals and symbols, and even spells that “offer the witch-curious a chance to try out some magic for themselves.”
Link to W Magazine post here.
