Hello everyone, I’m Angela and welcome to my Symposium. I’m a PhD and a University Lecturer and this is your online resource for the academic study of Magick and magick-practising religions and traditions.

Today I will provide some due clarifications on concepts tackled in my previous video on magic and queer or differently-abled communities. I must thank my patron Dean for helping me realize the need for this video as well as Andrew and Jenny for taking part in that lively discussion in our Inner Symposium.

So let’s first address the context in the referenced video I’m referring to the Pagan and Neopagan communities in Italy, not to all forms of Paganism worldwide and not to all of those who practice Magic across different traditions. Two core traits of academic and scientific knowledge are they need to be very specific and contextualized within a narrow frame of time and place so as to convey accurate information. Interestingly, in Italy and from what I read in the literature and hear from colleagues, this seems to be the case in numerous countries. There is a different perception and relation with the queer community, differently-abled people and other minorities depending on the Magic-practicing tradition we are referring to. To keep it concise, we have Pagans, eclectic Wiccans and Folk Witches on one side and reconstructivist movements such as those practising the Roman or Hellenic traditions as well as ceremonial forms of magic including the Gardnerian Wicca on the other side. In reference to the trend rather than what every single individual thinks, in Paganism, Eclectic Wicca and Folk Witchcraft we clearly see an inclusivist, non-heteronormative approach. This may be due to the popularization of these traditions among feminist and gay liberation movements which occurred on a significant scale in the United States from the 1960s onwards and impacted the reception of these traditions in Europe.

However, most occult traditions falling under the umbrella of Western esotericism, ceremonial magic, and movements reconstructing pre-Christian traditions do not seem to show this connotation – neither in their demographics nor in their philosophy. In some cases, dualism – male and female is even emphasized in certain magical practices. I’m not saying that the latter group is necessarily against the inclusion of these minorities but simply the political stance of opposing a perceived patriarchal society has not quite entered their discourse in such an endemic way as it has in the first group of traditions.

A second issue to clarify is that I did not mean to equate Magick and Paganism. As some of you rightfully pointed out, Magick is a craft while Paganism is a religious movement. Not all Pagans will practice Magick although most are included in their belief system. Magical Witchcraft, on the other hand, can be practised by anyone regardless of their religious affiliation or lack thereof. That being said, in literature, it is often reported that Shamanism, vernacular Magic and spirit possession often see a spontaneous, untrained engagement within the minorities of a given society as well as in times of crisis. People and times are at the fringes, at the borders of whatever is deemed normative for a given time or place. I can venture to say that this may be explained in two ways: one more metaphysical and the other more empirical.

Using the metaphysical perspective we can say, with Ernesto de Martino, that Magic solves the ‘crisis of presence,’ reaffirming the agency of someone who perceives a weakened dichotomy between their subjectivity and the surrounding world. Here Magick acts to strengthen that perception of self in the world by highlighting one’s agency, enhancing that there is in fact a subject, the person, acting upon an object – the world. Another common metaphysical explanation is found across different Shamanisms and notably in the Mapuche one, where dwelling at the fringes of society or gender will get you closer to entering the fringes of reality or altered states of consciousness. This doesn’t mean that those who don’t belong to these minorities cannot practice Magic just as effectively but simply that the mentioned minority groups may be a few steps ahead in that direction. And here we get to the empirical practical explanation as to why this may occur.

If you live in a society that limits your agency in the community you may be more predisposed to seek and find other ways to contribute and find your place in that community, perhaps becoming the town Healer or its Shaman. Being in a condition of limited agency, within a given society, may therefore prompt the person to find new alternative ways to navigate and exert power on their community since the ordinary means may be precluded. The extraordinary means become an option sometimes the only option to contribute and make a difference, just as someone without sight might develop alternative, synesthetic, ways of perceiving the world or those without hands may learn how to make use of their feet in unusual manners. So do marginalized individuals with an impaired agency, in their society, may turn to Magick practices to develop their selves in the world.

I really hope that this clarifies things and brings the conversation forward since this was a more conversational and chatty video you will find all the references in the infobox, they will be more or less the same that I used for my previous video on the topic but here we go, you will find them in the infobox. I really look forward to reading your thoughts and comments in the comment section.

Before wrapping up the video allow me to introduce to my Inner Symposium, my new patrons. Thank you so much for entering the Inner Symposium and becoming my Patrons you really make this work possible so thank you so very much to those who just pledged and those who stay pledged.

So this is it for today’s video. If you liked it SMASH the like button, subscribe to the channel, activate the notification bell so that you will never miss when I upload a new video and as always, stay tuned for all the academic fun.

Bye for now.

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 21 Dec 2020