Author’s Notes

Letter from the I began looking for ways to practice Wicca when I was in late middle school and early high school. At the time, the best way to Author begin was to know someone. A family friend who was Wicca introduced me to the idea, which I connected with immediately. During the Covid pandemic, I fell back into focusing on ways to practice Wicca. But I wasn’t alone. All of a sudden, my TikTok began to show hundreds of witches who were sharing spells, tricks, and tips online to other practitioners. With the witches of TikTok at my side, I began to feel comfortable reading tarot and doing rituals more frequently. My experience of discovering more about witchcraft on TikTok is not an isolated one. On TikTok, many videos have 1 million to over 25 million views. The #WitchTok (what people have dubbed this side of the app) has over 28.9 billion views. These numbers for any social media app are shockingly large and indicate this is not an isolated phenomenon. This raises the questions: why did witchcraft find a home on TikTok and why during the Covid 19 pandemic? Throughout my research I answer the above mentioned questions. In addition to this, I provide a comprehensive history of Wicca in Britain and the United States from 1940-2020 to help give context to the contemporary resurgence of interest in the craft.

My friend and I reading tarot in July 2020 4

Appropriation, Race, and Wicca: A Note

One of the more pressing issues in modern witchcraft and Wicca today is the problem of cultural appropriation. It is important to remember that Wicca is not the first or the only form of witchcraft in the world or certainly not in the United States. Unlike other forms of witchcraft that existed in America, Wicca was brought from Britain by white people and became a religion made of primarily white practitioners. This made it more socially acceptable than other forms of witchcraft or spirituality that black, Latinx, or Native people had practiced and faced persecution for. For example, smudging which is the act of normally burning sacred white sage is taken from Native American tribes. An article titled “How to be a witch without stealing other people's cultures” points out that smudging was actually “illegal for Native tribes to practice smudging in the U.S. until 1978.” Witchcraft on TikTok also lends itself to promoting “whitewashed, heteronormative, elitist, consumerist, and visually appealing images of witchcraft.” It is important to make sure that when people practice, that they aren’t stealing rituals from People of Color and respecting closed practices. The same article points out “there’s also a difference between folk magic and formal religions that were born out of slavery and colonialism, like Santería, Voodoo, and Candomblé.” Taking the time to do research on the history of witchcraft and colonization is a good place to start. Educating yourself and others is important and a small step in the right direction. Although I will not be touching on this topic in depth, here are links to places where you can learn more.

Podcast ”dedicated to Black Ass spirituality, community and witchy womanist insights into healing and culture Another podcast featuring interviews with witches of color and offers insights into decolonization of witchcraft Features a comprehensive list of sources you can use to learn more about racism in witchcraft 5

Who’s Wiccan? Who isn’t

Who is Wicca and who isn’t is complicated. I am focusing on people who label themselves as witches online, but using the history of Wicca to help inform how neopaganism and alternative spirituality established itself in contemporary America is important to consider. People on TikTok more broadly call themselves “witches,” which can refer to Wicca but is not limited to it. Conversely, people who are Wicca might not call themselves witches. “In digital spaces, lines between Pagan traditions—or between Pagans and other groups—are often blurry” (1), writes Chris Miller from the University of Waterloo in his article “How Modern Witches Enchant TikTok: Intersections of Digital, Consumer, and Material Culture(s) on #WitchTok.” He believes “divisions are collapsed within digital subcultures” (1), and this is exemplified by TikTok witches who According to Hugh Urban’s book New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements: Alternative Spirituality in Contemporary America, neopagan religions, which includes Wicca, have five key features that seem to be present in each practice. First, he says that these religions look back to “an ancient, usually pre-Christian past that they wish to either recover or draw inspiration from” (159). Second, these groups tend to have less structure than traditional religions. People can practice in groups or by themselves. Third, Urban identifies neopagan religions as more “practiceoriented” (159) than having a set of commandments. Finally, all of the groups have some element of gender equality or emphasis on women and a belief of the natural world as sacred or divine. Urban calls neopaganism “a religion of ‘othro-praxy’ (‘right practice’) rather than ‘orthodoxy’ (‘right belief’)” (166) meaning

Who’s Wiccan? Who isn’t? As Helen Berger, a scholar of contemporary Paganism, points out “adherents refer to themselves as practitioners, not believers.” Most neopagans follow one basic principle coined by English occultist Aleister Crowley and dubbed the Wiccan “rede” stating “an it harm none, do what ye will.” Many neopagans believe in the Goddess and most believe in the Horned God and the Triples Goddess (maiden, mother, and crone). Most follow a

Wheel of the year showing Wiccan holidays

Those who call themselves Wicca also differ by tradition. More formalized groups that meet in covens such as Gadernians and Alexandrians follow the workings of Gerald Gardner and Alex Sanders respectively. This gives them different rituals and workings that other covens might not have. Others like Starhawk’s Reclaiming tradition and Z Budapest’s Dianic tradition differ on fundamental issues such as their perception of men and women’s roles within the Craft. Most Wiccans who are online are solitary practitioners who practice eclectic magic, which draws on different traditions and rituals. In my writing I plan to focus on people on TikTok who call themselves witches, not just Wicca. Chris Miller believes “another possible appeal of WitchTok is its breadth. Users share an identity as Witches, yet draw on a range of traditions and tools for inspiration” (17). In the radio segment “Witchcraft Gets a Boost During Pandemic,” store owner Melanie Hall attempts to clear up the distinction between the two saying “...if you practice witchcraft you aren’t necessarily Wiccan and if you are Wiccan you don’t necessarily practice witchcraft. People will practice witchcraft and be Christain.” If you go on TikTok, the general consensus is that Wicca is a religion with holidays and gods, while witchcraft is something anyone can do. Of course, you find a lot of infighting, but this is the most widely accepted TikTok from distinction. practioner

A Brief History of Wicca (1950s2020s)

Wicca’s history is messy and tangled up with many unreliable narrators and stories. Critics point to this to show how Wicca as a religion should not be taken seriously, but what is a religion without an unreliable or hard to believe origin story? Margot Adler, author, Pagan high priestess, and NPR correspondent refers to it as “the myth of Wicca,” which is a better description of the beginning of the religion. Wicca traces its messy roots to England in the 1950s with Gerald Gardner popularizing the Craft. Wicca inevitably was brought to America, where it waxed and waned from popular media’s attention. Gardner was “a former customs officer whose 1954 book, Witchcraft Today, recounted his experience in a coven whose tenets were allegedly passed down from the Middle Ages.”

A Brief History of Wicca (1950s-2020s) Part of Gardner’s story hinged on the witch-cult theory made popular by feminist scholar Margaret Murray in her 1921 book The Witch Cult in Western Europe. She argues that “underlying the Christian religion was a cult practiced by many classes of the community…It can be traced back to pre-Christian times, and appears to be the ancient Gerald Gardner religion of Western Europe” (12). In her book she Many scholars have extensively outlines taken issue with this, as this religion and historian Ronald Hutton argues that the said in his book The witch trials were a Triumph of the Moon: A result of Christian's History of Modern Pagan demonizing and Witchcraft, “no misunderstanding academic historian has this religion. ever taken seriously However, Murray Gardner’s claim to have has been accused of discovered a genuine historical survival of an ancient inaccuracies. Her religion” (206). critics, such as However, Hutton does historian Robert conclude “it should be Hutton, say “her said that there is copious use of nothing inherently quotations masked implausible in Gardner’s the fact that she claim to have been ruthlessly ignored in initiated into an existing her sources religion” (207). anything which did not support her

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Hutton even goes as far to say she treated her sources with “reckless abandon” (198). Regardless of either Murray’s historical accuracy or Gardner’s credibility, the religion took off. Professor of religion and comparative studies at Ohio State University Hugh Urban says that “Gardner’s new Wicca movement quickly spawned a tremendous array of new forms of paganism” (159). Although writings like Murray’s and others such as Alestor Crowley predate the 1950s, Gardner’s book Witchcraft Today popularized Wicca to a mainstream audience. The book was the result of repeal of the Witchcraft Act of 1735 in 1951, which imposed fines or prison sentences to those who were found practicing any sort of witchcraft. Scholars seem to agree that Wicca arrived in America around the 1960s and early 70s and quickly became “the world center of modern paganism” (340). According to Aidan A. Kelly, an academic and founder of the New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn (one of many branches of Wicca), Raymond Buckland is responsible for bringing Wicca to America after being initiated in 1963. With his wife, the two founded a coven in Long Island, New York. Kelly writes that “since the late 1960s, enough information on the theory and praxis of Garderianstyle Witchcraft [witchcraft as outlined by Gardner’s books] has been available in books that any small group who wanted to could train themselves as a coven” (137).

First edition cover of Witchcraft Today

Ronald Hutton describes the book as “both embodied and justified the continuing eclectic evolution of the ceremonies of Wicca” (246). During the rest of the 1950s, Gardner spread Wicca around Britain through books, newspapers, and interviews.

Raymond Buckland

A Brief History of Wicca (1950s-2020s) By the late 1960s, Americans had taken to Wicca, but changed it in distinct ways. Most importantly, Americans adopted this new religion and fused it with contemporary politics of the time. In his chapter “Wicca and Neopaganism: Magic, Feminism, and Environmenatalism” in the book New Age, Neopagan, and New Religious Movements: Alternative Spirtiutality in Contemporary America, Hugh Urban writes “one of the most important reasons-though surely not the only reason-for the success of neopaganism in the United States has been its close association with two other social and political movements: feminism and environmentalism.” In the States, Wicca has always been closely allied with politics. This is continued This was the book a family friend who happened to be a High Priestess of a coven recommended to my sister and I when we were first interested in Wicca as teens. Hutton seems to have a soft spot for Starhawk as well, saying that she is “...a writer of remarkable talent” (345). In addition he says Starhawk and her book “reworked the whole image of witchcraft to give it a new significance, and respectability, to a modern liberal reader ” (346). The Spiral Dance is easy to read, filled with passion, and contains many different rituals that readers can perform. Hutton credits it with “having inspired the foundation of hundreds of groups of witches all over Europe and North America” (347). Mary Adler also agrees with this saying “there are some who have estimated that Starhawks book The Spiral Dance has alone created a thousand women’s covens and spiritual groups” (228). Needless to say, Starhawk was incredibly influential. echoed in practitioners writing from the time. Ronald Hutton points to Starhawk as the witch and author who combined Wicca traditions with the iconology of the witch as a liberated woman. Her book, The Spiral Dance: A

Starhawk A Spiral Dance performed 12

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Throughout the 1980s, Wicca continued to gain popularity and become increasingly more political. Starhawks’ second book Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex, and Politics from 1982 deepens Wicca’s political affiliation. Starhawk was involved in the antinuclear movement. She was arrested over 14 times, according to Adler who was writing in 1984 at the time. Adler calls Dreaming the Dark “a brilliant attempt to merge this insight of coven work with those learned from anarchist anti-nuclear affinity groups” (413). In addition to Starhawk, Zsuzsanna (Z) Budapest also popularized her idea of feminist based Wicca throughout the 1980s. She called her version Dianic Wicca. Hugh Urban describes her version as one that taught “witchcraft as a pure women’s religion, focused exclusively on the Goddess and organized as a womenonly space” (171). It’s important to note that the focus on the cisgender female and her body is problematic when considering trans or nonbianry people. Starhawk addressed this in 1989 for the 10 year anniversary edition of The Spiral Dance. In the section “Ten Years Later: Notes on Chapters One through Thirteen” she even says “I am no longer so sure that there Starhawk speaking about politics 12:20 is a ‘femine side’ to a man’s nature or a ‘masculine side’ to a woman’s nature. Today I find it more useful to think of the whole range of human possibilities–aggression, nurture, compassion, cruelty, creativity, passivity, etc–as available to us all, not divided by gender, either outer or inner ” (232).

Z Budapest

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The 1990s brought change to Wiccan groups. Many older leaders of covens died, which forced these groups to reconsider their structure. Back in Britain, Alex Sanders, founder of the Alexandrian tradition, died on April 30, 1988. The day of his death, the Pagan Federation reestablished itself. In 1989 they began holding annual conferences and membership increased. Starhawk in The Spiral Dance writes about the mid 90s as “a period of reorganization and restructuring” (5). In 1997, Starhawk and her version of Wicca called the Reclaiming published the Reclaiming Principles of Unity. In the 1990s, the integration of Wicca and Paganism into universities began. From 1994 onward, British universities such as University of Newcastle and University of Lancaster hosted academic conferences. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s a fascination with the figure of the witch was rekindled with mass media producing films and series centered around witches like The Craft from 1997 and Charmed from 19982006. Social issues such as the Anita Hill hearings in 1991 also sparked more people, especially women, to gravitate towards Wicca.

A Brief History of Wicca (1950s-2020s)

The election of continued Many women during the

Donald Trump and the late 2010s reclaimed this #METOO movement identity in the wake of sparked, again, interest in Trump’s “grab her by the

Wicca. From the 2015- pussy” statement and the 2019 witchcraft became Brett Kavanagh trials. more political. Feminist The 2010s is also author Jude Doyle writes when Wicca became a in The Gaurdian’s article commodity. Writer titled “Monsters, men and Hannah Gold reports in magic: why feminists her article from 2015 turned to witchcraft to titled “The Rise of the oppose Trump” from 2019 Hipster Witch” that

“The Trump administration “Buzzfeed even has its represented a breaking own ‘Witches’ Counsel,’ point for many women. presided over by witches-

After decades in which cum-Buzzfeed-staffsophisticated thinkers writers who give advice dismissed patriarchy as on how to get hot summer simplistic or irrelevant, it bods and boyfriends.” was revealed to be alive, Shows like The Chilling well and out for blood – Adventures of Sabrina the ethos which still ruled from 2018 also the US government and popularized the idea of defined, or ended, witches. countless women’s lives.” Tarot, astrology, and the Brett Kavanagh Wiccan practices went trials. Witches have from harder to find in the always been a figure of early 2010s to more female empowerment and Sign from the Women’s normalized in public and resistance to the March online spaces. When I was patriarchy. beginning to look into Wicca, the best place to go was to Salem Massachusetts where the witchcraft stores were. Now Urban Outfitters on Newbury Street is selling books on witchcraft. Jason Mankey, a pagan writer, chronicles the last 10 years in his article “Paganism and Witchcraft in the 2010s.” He speaks about what he calls the “occult bubble” which he says comes every 20 years, give or take. Mankey says the 1960s and 1970s was one bubble, with the late 1990s beginning the second. However, he says “today’s bubble feels very different. Even in 1998 when Witchcraft was ‘hot’ it still required a trip into at least the local Barnes and Noble. Today, that’s no longer the case. You can pick up Witch books at retail stores such as Urban Outfitters, or simply search Instagram for spell ideas.

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Witchcraft has become a part of the zeitgeist, in a way it never has before.” He ruminates on how new media has changed the landscape of what Wicca looks like. Books used to be the main entry into Wicca and Paganism, but now social media like Instagram or Youtube can be the way in. Mankey asks and answers an important question saying “Do I find this change problematic? Despite what it sounds like, I really don’t. People will find what they are meant to find, and get out of it what they put into it.” Many others don’t find this a good thing and believe that those who practice older traditions of the Craft such as Garderian and Alexandrian are the only real or valid

Witch Youtuber

Mankey’s observation about Wicca becoming part of the zeitgeist was about to become even more realized. As he wrote in December of 2019, Wiccans on TikTok were already gathering and beginning to share their content. At the same time, reports from Wuhan about a strange new SARS virus dubbed Covid-19 was beginning to spread. These two forces would soon combine to create a large influx of practitioners on a brand new media platform during another period of deep societal unrest. TikTok and Covid were about to introduce a large generation of teens to Wicca and witchcraft on a

Instagram page about witchcraft