Real Witchcraft

  Yesterday I was talking to a group of people at school. One guy was talking about his crazy family and was describing their various crazy antics in detail.  Out of nowhere came,

  "She practices witchcraft...like, real witchcraft."

  The emphasis on "real" witchcraft was obviously aimed at making us understand just how truly crazy this woman was.  Let's have a quick run-down of my thoughts during this encounter:

He began describing a spooky-looking table full of all sorts of supplies and things he wasn't supposed to touch.

          Oh yeah! That makes sense. Most pagans wouldn't want you touching their altars.


  He talked about how she practiced some dark Vodou shit.

     Oh. Voudou.  (I've never practiced it, but I've definitely heard about people who have.)

  He described some weird thing she did where she taped coins onto a plastic bottle. She had planned to throw it into a river, but told her family that when she went down to the river to do it there was a guy there, and she couldn't.

That sounds familiar, like sympathetic magick for prosperity. And ugh, who hasn't gone to a park to try to do some pagan thing and had the hardest time finding a place with no people to do it in?(Many pagans would take issue with throwing non-biodegradable things into rivers, though.)

  Whether or not the woman was crazy in other ways, I clearly related to most of the things he was describing about her. I didn't speak up. Maybe I should have, but in the moment, I was experiencing a confusing mess of emotions and it was hard to believe that any fumbling explanation I could attempt would change his mind.

  After I walked away, the impression burned in my mind was, This is how he sees us. 

  People of other religions hold all sorts of beliefs. Many Christians believe in the divine revelation of the Bible and the physical resurrection of Jesus, and yet they are generally accepted as decently normal, sane people. Why is the belief that I can use my thoughts and will to change my reality any different? 

  The fact that someone is a pagan does not mean they are crazy, any more than a Christian or Buddhist is crazy for their beliefs. We are just people, like everyone else, and a belief in the reality of "witchcraft" does not invalidate us.