At its inception in the first half of the 20th Century, modern neo-Pagan witchcraft was inherently political. \u00a0It was a new religion for a new age. \u00a0Disdaining the One God for a Goddess and her consort. \u00a0Challenging mainstream religion with (then new, albeit now discredited) interpretations of historical fact. \u00a0Giving religious authority to individual worshipers and, more frighting, to women.<\/p>\n
In the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, Pagans of all stripes were closely allied with the environmental and animal rights movements. \u00a0Witchcraft traditions, in particular, were almost synonymous with feminism. \u00a0The Feri and Reclaiming traditions, just to name two, were political protest organizations as much as religious ones.<\/p>\n
When I joined the movement in the mid 1990s that was still the case. \u00a0The Satanic Panic was “officially” over, but the echoes had not yet died down. \u00a0We were fighting for the right to serve openly in the military. \u00a0Every Pagan web page on the internet had a link to, or the full text of, Isaac Bonewits cult identification rubric<\/a>, and\/or a disclaimer addressing law enforcement, assuring them that we did not believe in Satan, curse anyone, or perform human or animal sacrifices. \u00a0A presidential hopeful (who went on to win) scored points with his base by condemning us as “not a real religion”. \u00a0There were an increasing number of people who resisted calling any of that “political”, but that didn’t change the reality that it was<\/em>.<\/p>\n In the 1990s and 2000s, though, an underlying current of assimilationism made its way to the forefront. \u00a0I don’t know, exactly, what happened. \u00a0Perhaps, like we’ve seen in the Gay Rights movement over\u00a0the last few years, those with the least to lose decided that they had won enough recognition that they are prepared to throw everyone else under the bus in order to keep it. \u00a0My own belief is\u00a0that, in the wake of, first, the Satanic Panic, then the 9\/11 attacks, fear and nationalism took over: “we’re just like everyone else” stopped being a strategically deployed shield, and became a goal.<\/p>\n People stopped looking quite so askance at Neo-Nazi Norse Pagans, and that – combined with the spikes in racism and sexism in mainstream society – backflowed into the Pagan mainstream like an overflowing sewer, reinforcing the underlying racism and swank pedestal sexism that had always been a part of the movement.\u00a0 Explicitly nationalist (and often implicitly heterosexist white supremacist) reconstructionist Paganisms emerged in both Europe and the United States.<\/p>\n Now event organizers pride themselves on their political neutrality. \u00a0When Pagans discuss what they need to to to achieve greater “mainstream acceptance”, more than half will tell you that Paganism needs to keep out of politics.\u00a0 When trans folx demand to be included in gendered rites, half the opposition is from pole who don’t want their religion politicized.\u00a0 When others among us demand un-gendered spaces, or try to complicate gendered archetypes, we are accused of “overthinking things” or dismissed as having “an agenda”. When some of us point out that Native Americans have asked not to be counted among our number, have asked us to stop stealing their language, to stop aping their their rituals, to stop copying and selling their tools, we are accused of being too political.\u00a0 When some of us speak up against police brutality, against war, against rape culture, we are shouted down as being too negative<\/em>, too divisive<\/em>, too political<\/em>.<\/p>\n That doesn’t work. \u00a0Literally everything is political.<\/p>\n For Paganism to stay out of politics, it must become empty<\/em> and meaningless<\/em>. \u00a0And, even then, it’s still political: it’s become a product to be sold, a lifestyle to be aspired to, an aesthetic without ethics or ecstasy.<\/p>\n Politics is ethics in practice. \u00a0If our\u00a0religion does not inform our\u00a0ethics (and vice versa, for that matter), then it is nothing<\/em>.<\/p>\n Paganism must be political. \u00a0Pagans must take public stances, as Pagans, on the issues of our day. \u00a0We must agitate. \u00a0We must argue. \u00a0We must take action.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At its inception in the first half of the 20th Century, modern neo-Pagan witchcraft was inherently political. \u00a0It was a new religion for a new age. \u00a0Disdaining the One God for a Goddess and her consort. \u00a0Challenging mainstream religion with (then new, albeit now discredited) interpretations of historical fact. \u00a0Giving religious authority to individual worshipers … Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[83,206,207],"class_list":["post-3111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-feminist-witchcraft","tag-political-paganism","tag-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kUcm-Ob","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}