October hits and, as surely as the calendar scrolls forward, the tone of my inbox shifts. Interspersed with messages from students asking about midterms and invitations to Halloween parties are requests from journalists, podcasters, and internet personalities looking for someone to talk to about witchcraft. The questions they ask are different depending on their angle. Those who find me through my university credentials ask me to explain why witches seem to be everywhere these days or why anyone reasonable might want to become a witch. Those who find me through my platform on social media, where I'm openly a Wiccan high priestess, want to know what witches are really up to. And-without fail-whether or not spells actually work! These latter requests sometimes border on sensationalism, but more often than not, they take the position of declaring that witches, what-ever the media might lead us to believe, are no different from the rest of us. Neither angle is entirely true. Or, perhaps, both are equally true. The residual fear and curiosity surrounding witch-craft still makes for good clickbait each year, but it's also strangely ubiquitous these days, and often framed as a quirky distraction for rebellious teen girls or an eccentric pursuit popular with granola moms and hippie types. Stereotypes abound, and most of them are some flavor of disparaging. The real picture is quite a bit more complicated.
In most ways I look very conventional from the outside. I was raised by a nice family in an American suburb, graduated from a state university, and entered the workforce. I've variously been a classroom teacher, a retail worker, a corporate office employee, and a graduate student. Most of the people I've met in these realms would not suspect that I have another life entirely. I began exploring the world of magic, witchcraft, and the occult as a youngster, driven-like many children-by an interest in mythology, fantasy, and storytelling. As a teenage girl, I was introduced more seriously to witchcraft through a combination of television and movies (the nineties were something of a hotbed for witch depictions) and the influence of equally fascinated friends. The witchcraft books we were reading promised that witchcraft could improve our personal lives, help us connect to the cycles of nature, and tap into extraordinary magical abilities. By the time I entered college, I identified as a witch and had aspirations to take on leadership positions in the magical com-munities I was frequenting. I participated in a campus Pagan student club, attended open rituals at a local metaphysical store, and spent the summers traveling to magical festivals. I would in short order become an initiate in a coven, then many years later a high priestess, and finally a coven leader in my own right. I practiced spells, led night-time rituals, spoke to spirits and gods, and performed secret rites passed to me by a line of magical elders.
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