Thursday, June 16, 2016

Witches don't hex? What?

So I guess a few days ago good old Raymond Buckland decided to come out and say that witches don't hex people. Look. I don't care how influential you are in the community, you don't get to call the shots for all witches across all traditions. Period. End of story.

But apparently some are trying to say, oh, he didn't mean witches, he meant Wiccans! Dude has been part of the community for how long and still doesn't know there are non-Wiccan witches, and that you really should use the word Wicca for referring to, well, Wicca? Come on now. Plus, it's still not true. Neither Gardner or Valiente took a 'never hex' stance, and I kinda think they both count as Wiccans, considering, you know, they were the ones who really created Wicca.

Heck, Buckland himself includes some hexes and the like in his Practical Candleburning book, but in a second post he says woah now, that's not witchcraft, that's magic! Uh... okay? He also seems to want to double down on the whole witches follow the Wiccan rede thing. I honestly do not understand how anyone could actually be actively involved in the community for so long, and still hold such an outdated misconception.

So let's say it again. Not all witches are Wiccans. Not all witches follow the Wiccan rede, the rule of three, karma, or any other such notion. Witches certainly do hex. There have always been witches who hex. If some witches or traditions make the choice to never hex, that is their call, and I will always respect that - but again, none of those folks get to make that decision for everyone. That's just not how it works, and not how it should work.

And look, I do get where he's coming from, the overall point it seems he's trying to make. A lot of people have worked hard to shed some of the stigma around witchcraft, and so all this hexing talk that's been going on as of late, I get why some say, hey, that doesn't really make the community look great... But there's a right way and a wrong way to discuss that. Coming out and saying witches never hex, disregarding anything that's not Wicca, etc, is a truly terrible way to open a dialogue in the community. There are so many better ways to talk about your experiences and get your message and opinion out there, do we really have to resort to dictating how others practice? How is that helping anyone?

1 comment:

  1. Especially considering many many books and tomes in the historical record, which you know, we kind of found our learning on what exactly witchcraft means and entails, contain some references to hexing. And as for the rule on Karma, I occasionally have to wonder, perhaps the witch whom cast the hex on the pain in the backside of the community putting bad will into the world, is enacting the role of Karma, she is nature's/ the world's/ the God's/Karma's instrument. Still a witch though...

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