A witch

I have been Pagan longer than I have been anything else, aside from a writer and possibly a human. At times, my faith was strong, impressive as I also typified my namesake, the Doubting Thomas. Let me finger your wounds before I can believe you were crucified.

Yet, when it came to witchcraft, I graded on a curve.

As a teenager, ignorant of much and full of powerful emotions without mooring, it is hard not be believe in magic, or to want to. My devotion went deeper than theological parlor tricks. Experiences led me to believe that this was the right path for me, as lapsed as I am for want of a hyperlocal community. I rarely question that I ought to be a Pagan, though my confidence in a deity has grown vaguer and less personal. I am a pantheist (and Discordian and Taoist), but I believe it is all the same energy manifesting in the form we need. Belief gives the energy a face on which we can focus, Odin or the Virgin Mary and not spiritus mundi.

For much of my life, the media's depiction of Paganism niggled at me. Even my favorite show growing up, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, felt the need to exploit this. It would have been fine to use magic, or even to call it witchcraft. Prechristian religions or their reconstructions have no monopoly on magic, and certainly have no priority to it or copyright on it. Talk about thetans and the Scientologists will nail a cease and desist to your front door before you get to cobbling together your e-meter. Speak some poor Latin over a Yankee candle and most witches I've met will give you a thumbs up and a smile. The path is an individual journey. You are welcome to explore.

Buffy had every right to use dusty tomes and talk of binding circles. Then, Joss Whedon decided to lump the actual religion of Wicca in with levitating pencils and purple lightning bolts. The logic was that Wicca does exist as a valid religion in the Buffyverse, as demonstrated by the campus Wicca club where Willow meets Tara (in Willow's words, the "wanna-blessed-bes"). But, alongside Wicca exists arcane, theatrical magic. Within Sunnydale, Wicca functions with more flare than in our mundane, demon-absent world. American audiences wouldn't appreciate a Japanese program that had Christian prayer surround its target with venomous fog before atomizing them, but that is comparable logic.

I respect it on some level. They validated this religion real, but they were not making a show to portray reality in all its muted glory. Wicca gives one a connection to the divine, and, oh by the by, Willow misuses magic in a bad drug addiction metaphor.

Media appropriations I could offend me , and some are offensive, but I pick my battles. I don't expect the Harry Potter universe to dwell too long on questions of theodicy, not when its protagonist hisses at bathroom fixtures to open hidden passages. It would be crass if Hermione proselytized to Harry that Gardnarian Wicca was purer than Dianic Wicca or argued with the Order of the Phoenix about the Ordo Templi Orientis. JK Rowling has said that, while there is a solitary Jew, Anthony Goldstein, in Harry's class, there are no Wiccans. That is for the best. Paganism as it exists in our world should not in Hogwarts. Aside from the existence of Christmas as a holiday and obvious Christian themes and tropes, Snape wasn't teaching his students that Jesus Christ was the first wizard. That would cause aneurysms and mass incineration of the series. I am not positive the Patels followed one of the Abrahamic faiths, at that. No one in Hogwarts is using Jesus or Shiva in their magic. Rowling can have her magic because it is not meant to be my magic.

With The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina back for a second season, twitchy people are again trying to put words in the mouths of Pagans. I wish Netflix would omit any idea that the magic of Sabrina has the least thing to do with contemporary Pagan religions or modern Satanism. I imagine, but would not presume to claim, that Christians wouldn't be thrilled with how their religion comes off on Sabrina. It's a theological mess, but an entertaining, schlocky one.

I don't need someone offended on my behalf, particularly when I have not asked, and they only seem to be doing this because they want attention and clicks. Otherwise, they would have cared to ask. (I was more bothered that Sabrina stepped on my toes by paraphrasing Grylla and the Yule Lads, as I give talks about them and someone might assume I got my research from a show in the Archie Universe where the little girl from Mad Men is magical.)

Magic

I can suspend my disbelief and accept that, in these fictional universes, things do not flow as they do here. In reality, a cross isn't going to be effective against the creatures of the night unless you shove it in their eye socket. That isn't an offense against Christianity. Fiction imbues symbols with more force.

In my own books, I try to use as close as I can to actual spells and rituals. Within my universe, they do pack more of a punch. According to the rules of my story it is only the power of disbelief that robs them of their effectiveness.

Even Silver RavenWolf and her ilk have put out young adult fantasy novels for Wiccan kiddies. Though I have not read any, I do not doubt that the characters' connection to how magic works for practicing Wiccans is loose. It would be boring for witchcraft to have its actual effect, and few artists want to be dull enough to include quiet devotion and rituals more like potlucks. Christians have a whole genre of pandering, awkward movies that affirm that God is a borderline genie who will work to spite atheists. These are the same species in different stripes.

I cannot speak for Satanists. I've read LaVey's Satanic Bible and found it thoughtful and interesting performance art, which is more than I expected from a carnival barker. It is coherent philosophy, though some (even within the Church of Satan) have better termed it radical humanism. When (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/22/arts/satanic-temple-sabrina-statue.html) the Church sued The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, it was not because their version of Satanism isn't internally consistent or remotely accurate, but because the show stole their copyrighted statue of Baphomet (destroyed surely coincidentally in the second season). The Church of Satan is otherwise too busy pointing out the hypocrisy of allowing the Ten Commandments on state property or mandatory prayer in public schools.

Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows fantasy programs like Sabrina aren't documentaries, even if they are keen to appropriate morsels of actual theology without regard. It is easier than worldbuilding. Sabrina isn't the first and it certainly won't be the last.

I know witches who gather to watch The Craft, unironically enjoying its cheesiness. That movie has brought a few curiosity seekers to see what witchcraft actually was. Once they learned they could not beach whales with their raw power or make their enemies hallucinate alopecia, most faded away. A few stuck around because they found something affirming.

The closest I see to actual Pagans in the media tends to be a hippie, stoner, fluffy stereotype, dripping in crystals and essential oils. I cannot deny this is well-represented in the community. That is harmless, if not downright affectionate. I am not above enjoying a justified satirical skewering. There are also model-perfect, gothy teenagers who pick up spell books trying to curse bullies, which is also accurate for those from ages 14-19, but is not representative of people practicing a cohesive religion. Hot Topic brand witches are less welcome on my television, but I cop to having friends as a teenager who fit that bill. Almost always, those kids move on to other religions or nothing at all in short order.

If the media is not descended from Chick tracts, labeling anyone who practices their religion differently as hell bound sinners, conflating candle magic with arson, I tend to at worst roll my eyes. Like my pantheism itself, I accept that Paganism is how this sacred energy has manifested in my life, but not every. I would sneer at anything that wanted to paint Buddhism as soul-stealing. I actively counteract the rampant Islamophobia in the media. I expect the same for what I believe.

I hope, in short, for authors to use Paganism better or ignore it entirely. Fictional magic doesn't need to namedrop actual theology.

Soon in Xenology: Mental illness.

last watched: Angel: the Series
reading: Fast Times at Ridgemont High
listening: Damien Rice