How does Paganism treat people who do not fit societies normative ideas of gender, sexuality or neurotypical standards or physical abilities? Starting in the 1960s Pagans and liberation movements found common ground. In a polytheistic worldview social distinctions are not important and practising magic gives agency to those who feel powerless. Also, some paths emphasise that divergence lends increased ability to engage with the spiritual world. To put it another way, Magic is connection to nature, not the normative definition of nature. Paganism is welcoming to all, not just those who fit in societal norms.

Summary

Is the concept of magic particularly sympathetic to the queer community and differently-abled people? Since pagan Witchcraft appears to be popular among this demographic I wondered, is there a particular element underlying magic which lures those on the fringe of society to explore the fringe of reality?

Let’s find out.

Hello everyone I’m Angela and welcome to my Symposium. I’m a university lecturer and a researcher and this is your online resource for the academic study of Magic and magic-practising religions and traditions. Today’s video will investigate how come people who belong to the LGBTQ+ community or those who live with physical or mental disabilities appear to be drawn to the practice of magic. This video’s content is based on a paper I delivered this week at the conference of the American Academy of Religion in the Contemporary Pagan Studies unit. But now let’s move on to the topic shall we?

In a normative society that which breaks the norm becomes the other. The other can be someone who does not fit the heteronormativity the widespread view that gender is binary or someone living in a body with impairing disabilities. The other is also what does not fit the dominant religious system, the majoritarian worldview, and the belief system held by most and that’s considered the truth. The practice of magic is also other, other than what is deemed to be religious or real and other than what is believed to be possible, according to the widespread positivistic worldview. We have, therefore, an actor living outside the norm and an action that breaks the norm – both operating at the margins of society or so it used to be. But is there anything about magic and what it brings to the table that helps outsiders pierce through those margins and find their place within society?

Since the 1960s the United States of America has seen a resurgence of the witch reinterpreted as a feminist icon. This was made quite plain when the American feminist movement chose WITCH, Women’s International [Terrorist] Conspiracy from Hell as the acronym for their name. We find an echo and a link of this association in contemporary pop culture as the TV show “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” adopts the acronym WICCA for the Women’s Intersectional Cultural and Creative Association as well as in the new “Charmed” which features a lesbian gender-studies scholar in a leading role. These new formulations of the witch were based on the second-wave feminist sense of urgency to construct a political ‘We’ while creating a common identification with the historical oppression of women. Such a trend fostered the spreading of Wicca finding a fertile environment among the women’s and gay liberation movements seeking spiritual liberation from the Christian hegemony.

Later on, feminist forms of Witchcraft were born to overcome what they perceived to be an existing patriarchal system which had, in world religions, devalued and denied women’s religious experience. Is this, however, the only reason why Magic is so popular among certain demographics or might there be another underlying aspect to magic which lures those on the fringe of society to the fringe of reality? My fieldwork in Italy among Italian Pagans has shown quite clearly that, among those who identify as Pagans, Wiccans and Neopagans, an overwhelming majority belongs to the LGBTQ+ community.

I will now proceed on arguing that the practice of Magic on the path of Pagans entails an element or multiple ones, which appear to be sympathetic to the worldview held by this demographic. As Greenwood points out, feminist Witchcraft has, in common with all magical cosmologies, a holistic philosophy. As the symbol of the goddess unites the individual with the universe in both macrocosm and microcosm, a holistic view of reality is easily translatable to an inclusivist approach in society. Starting with the newly rediscovered divine feminine to then moved on to regaining the sacredness of different sexual orientations and gender identifications. Rountree also highlights that Magic becomes an expression of a much wider trend that is challenging the dominator model which has framed social relations with regard to gender, ethnicity, age, class, and other social distinctions as well as human relationships with the rest of the natural world.

Notably, Ernesto de Martino argues that magic represents a way to solve the ‘crisis of presence.’ This crisis occurs when the agency of the individual is threatened by a weakened subject-object dichotomy. Consequently, the subject goes from being ‘acting’ to being ‘acted upon’, from holding an intentional agency to an intentioned one. The person is not the active agent anymore but rather a world’s echo and what are these minorities reduced to if not a world’s echo? Magic, on the other hand, gives agency back to these people resolving their crisis of presence in the world and reaffirming their existence as acting agents. In some traditions and cultures, such outliers are even deemed to stand in a favourable position when it comes to engaging with Magic. It is not uncommon, in fact, that religious phenomena, which involve magic such as Folk Witchcraft and Shamanism, encompass the belief that there is an inclination towards Magic on the part of those who manifest features which set them apart from the societal norm. These elements may and do include gender fluidity and physical and mental infirmities. During my fieldwork in Argentina in 2019, a Mapuche Shaman explained that liminality is the ground field of Magic and certain individuals, who inhabit the thresholds of our shared reality, could be more inclined to access that liminal state as they embody liminality in our society. The unseen power of Magic becomes then a tool for those who are unseen in society, to get their visibility back, to be seen through the unseen, so to speak.

I here endorse the conceptualisation of magic proposed by Bernd-Christian Otto who advocates “learned magic”, meaning the kind of magic that practitioners learn how to perform, to be viewed as a floating signifier. For magic is deemed to have no intrinsic meaning in itself and develops one only in relation to certain contexts historical backgrounds and communities thus, I wondered, what is the floating significance that the Italian Pagan community attributes to the word magic? Let’s see what emerged from their discourses. Magic is connection to nature, not the normative definition of nature. Magic is employing and manipulating the hidden forces to affect changes in one’s reality. Which does not require functioning arms or legs and the most recurring definition of them all Magic is energy. Energy is not gender-dependent nor is it reliant on someone fitting in within a given society and it does not even necessitate an enabled body. Magic becomes, therefore, pure potential agency which utterly disregards the socially privileged and breaks through all the constraints and rules dictated by a patriarchal, heteronormative, able-bodied-oriented society.

My conclusory remarks are based on what a Pagan Priest from Naples told me, during an interview in early 2020. Magical practices, they say, go beyond and break down labels and the labelling of every limitation dictated by social norms. Magic bears the seed of social and personal empowerment for the minorities in our society as it’s a trait of combining a profound embedment in nature with a constant leap to what lies beyond, demolishes any framework, social, gender or otherwise to pierce through into the unknown.

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This is it for today’s video. Please let me know in the comment section what do you think about everything that I said. What are your views and perspectives? I really look forward to knowing what you think about it and if you like this video, SMASH the like button, subscribe to the channel, activate the notification bell so that you will never miss a new video from me and as always, stay tuned for all the academic fun.

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REFERENCES

Bacigalupo, A. M. (2004) ‘The Mapuche man who became a woman shaman: Selfhood, gender transgression, and competing cultural norms’, American Ethnologist, vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 440–457.

De Martino, E. (2007) Il mondo magico: prolegomeni a una storia del magismo, Bollati Boringhieri.

Doyle White, E. (2016) Wicca: History, Belief, and Community in Modern Pagan Witchcraft, None edition., Brighton, Chicago, Sussex Academic Press.

Eliade, M. (1972) Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (trans. W. R. Trask), Princeton, Princeton University Press.

Greenwood, S. (2013) ‘Feminist Witchcraft: A Transformatory Politics’, in Charles, N. and Hughes-Freeland, F. (eds), Practising Feminism, Routledge.

Groce, N. and McGeown, J. (2013) Witchcraft, Wealth and Disability: Reinterpretation of a Folk Belief in Contemporary Urban Africa, SSRN Scholarly Paper, Rochester, NY, Social Science Research Network.

Otto, B.-C. (2019) ‘The Routledge History of Medieval Magic’, in Page, S. and Rider, C. (eds), A discourse historical approach towards medieval learned magic, Routledge Handbooks Online.

Preston Blier, S. (1993) ‘Truth and Seeing: Magic, Custom, and Fetish in Art History’, in Bates, R. H., Mudimbe, V. Y., and O’Barr, J. (eds), Africa and the Disciplines, University of Chicago Press, pp. 139–166.

Rountree, K. (2004) Embracing the Witch and the Goddess: Feminist Ritual-Makers in New Zealand, London, Routledge.

Sempruch, J. (2004) ‘Feminist Constructions of the “Witch” as a Fantasmatic Other’, Body & Society, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 113–133.

Wallis, R. J. (2000) ‘Queer shamans: Autoarchaeology and neo-shamanism’, World Archaeology, Routledge, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 252–262.

(First uploaded 14 Dec 2020)