The Queer, the Witch and the Mystic

 

In August 2021, I wrote a blog about Mother Shipton and St Robert of Knaresborough entitled Witch or Saint? A Fine Line.  Today, I am returning to similar territory in order to answer my own questions:

1. Why are so many Queer people drawn to witchcraft or witchy vibes?
2. How much difference is there really between the practice of witches and my own practice as a Celitc Christian drawn to the mystical tradition?

I have been helped considerably in my investigations by the BBC's podcast Witch and Sacha Coward's excellent book Queer As Folklore.

Regarding my first question, Sacha outlines a number of reasons in his book, some of which he discovered through responses to an online callout, asking for people who identify both as witches and LGBTQIA+ to share their thoughts on the correlation between the two.

1. There is an obvious comparison to be made between historic witch hunts and the persecution of Queer people. Morover, both in previous centuries and more recently, there has been a tendency for authories to lump homosexuality, witchcraft and devil worship together. Not to mention the intersection with colonialism, when the colonist's finger began to point at indegenous societies, perhaps those with traditional third genders, accusing them of witchcraft.
2. Many contemporary queer witches shared stories of being raised in a restrictive religious environment, with internalised shame and queerphobia. "...witchcraft fulfilled a spiritual need that other organised religions could not. Becoming a witch was aligned with their journey of becoming a happy and spiritually fulfilled LGBTQ+ person". (1) As the BBC podcast also highlights, witchcraft is focused on practice, not a system of belief. [It's worth pointing out hat not all witches (even Queeer ones) have divorced themselves from traditional religions. An online colleague of mine refers to herself as "a Jewitch". Others have desribed themselves as "a Christo-pagan, an ecclectic witch".]
3. For females in particular, the witch is often "synonymous with s3xual liberation and acts deemed obscene or forbidden in other places and groups" (2). It has an associations in people's minds with female empowerment. 
4. People find a sense of chosen family with their fellow witches.

As with other "dark" figures covered in Sacha's book (werewolves, demons, vampires) there seems to be a sense of, "You call us monsters, so we will be monsters. Fear us!"

What about me? I grew up during the "satanic panic" of the 1980s, referenced in Sacha's book. I was taught to fear witches, and even the fantasy genre (when it got past the innocent fairies and pixies of children's books). As s3x-repulsed ace (unknown to myself) I feared everything s3xual. And given that I was also growing up during the AIDS crises and Section 28 (a UK law of 1988 that forbade the teaching of LGBTQ+ issues, challenging homophobia etc.) I had a confusion of mixed messages around homosexuality (I knew nothing about the rest of the rainbow) that is best summed up in Adrain Plass's 1987 novel The Sacred Diary of Adrain Plass.

Gerald's got a girlfriend, so he's certainly not gay.

(Not that I ever thought he was.)

Wednesday March 5th

(Not that I'm prejudiced against gay people.)

...

(Not that I think it's right).

Thursday March 6th

(Being gay I mean). (3)

 And since "being gay" was largely portrayed as being all about s3x, naturally there was fear there too, along with the notion that none of this directly affected me because I was straight. (Ha! Ha!)

I won't relate the whole saga of how I came to step outside the "evangelical sub-culture" and eventually take vows as a member of the Community of Aidan and Hilda.   (I will note that the church I was raised in was never repressive, and was and is open to learn and change. I'm still there, and helping us become a safer space for LGBTQIA+ people.) 

I will say that I am now part of a world-wide fellowship of people, seeking - among other things - to:

• Restore an holistic Christian spirituality reconnecting with the Spirit and the Scriptures, the saints and the streets, the seasons and the soil, weaving together the separated strands of Christianity and healing the land.

In practice, this means I:

• Honour what has come to be known as the Wheel of the Year, the eighfold seasons celebrating solstices and equinoxes, Imbolc, Beltane, Lammas and Samhain. There's a tendency on social media to portray these as exclusively pagan. But that is not so. As Eleanor Parker points out in Winters in the World: A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year, in a pre-industrial society, "human life as lived through the seasons was one part of an organic whole, inseparable from the patterns of nature, where the natural, the human and the holy were interrelated in the most essential ways." (4) That's true whatever your religion.
• Pray encircling prayers of protection (called Caim in Scots Gaelic) as did Saint Ninian.
• Create home altars - both indoors and out - that change with the seasons. The photo at the top of this blog is something I created in my garden for Hallowtide last year.
• Feel at home with death and the dead. Not in a spooky way. Because I believe everything is in God, the saints and the departed are never far away. They are friends. I find graveyards to be friendly places.
• View all created things as being imbued with the Divine. I can't tell you how strongly I've experienced the Incarnation through cats in the last few years. Many saints and mystics have had similar experiences; nearly all the Celtic saints are associated with an animal or bird of some sort.
• Use my creativity and all my senses as part of my spiritual practice. And yes, for me this also involves foraging and cooking wild food, making herbal teas etc.

Having listened to several episodes of the Witch podcast, I find a significant overlap between my practices and the practices of those who identify as witches. They feel ast home with the dead and with nature. They create home altars. They pray encircling prayers. Some of the people interviewed are recorded participating in rituals that honour the seasons. They say what unhelpful mindsets they want to cast away. They speak their intentions for the future. They bless things. None of this is unfamilir to me. They believe a power is flowing through them. So do I.

I'm not sure where that leaves me. There obviously is a difference between myself and witches. Probably in what we believe is the source of the power and what causes it to flow. Almost definitely in the fact that I have a foundational set of religious and moral beliefs. And that I've taken vows to live by a Way of Life that helps me embody those more fully. 

The witchy vibe has never appealed to me. But I think I now have the insights to begin dispelling the fears and misunderstandings that still exist on all sides. It's time to put the "satanic panic" behind us and actually listen.

1. Coward, Sacha. Queer As Folklore: The Hidden Queer History of Myths and Monsters. London: Unbound, 2024. p.110

2. Ibid. p.110

3. Plass, Adrian. The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass Aged 37 3/4. Basingstoke: Mashall Pickering, 1987. pp. 96-97.

4. Parker, Eleanor. Winters in the World: A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year. London: Reaktion Books, 2023.