So, I’m curious if there’s anyone else out there experiencing the same thing I am.
I have an inkling that my generally anhedonic mood lately is contributing to this somewhat, but also, I have always sort of felt this way at least to some extent.
Am I the only one for whom witchcraft isn’t very spiritual?
Hard as I try, that aspect of it has never really made sense to me. Perhaps it’s because I wasn’t raised religious – the ecstatic experience is something I tend to get from stuff like getting in trouble for outing corrupt politicians, not from ritual. And although I do work with the dead and, to a lesser and more wibbly-wobbly degree, also with spirits, to me the communication has always been utilitarian and, dare I say, mundane. I am having a conversation. Nothing more.
I use witchcraft the same way I use a Swiss army knife, and I practice magical skills in the same way I practice coding. It’s a tool for me. It’s something I only do when I have a need. It’s something that hasn’t changed the way I see the world, but rather, given me the appropriate set of tools for the problems not answered by mundane and non-magical solutions.
The difference between botany and green craft is razor-thin to me. The difference between energy work and electrical theory is similarly blurry and indistinct. I don’t have a clear answer for where the mundane ends and the magical begins, and in many cases, I don’t really change mental state whenever I am crossing from one to the other, or even perceive myself as crossing anything at all. Over time, I’ve stopped even having any specific witchy space, small offering altars aside, and most of my hoarde of witchy supplies have gone – I see no sense in having a divide between my craft and everything else when I don’t perceive much difference between the two, and mundane tools work as well as specifically witchy ones.
And perhaps, if I were to sit down and really think about it, I might find my way of looking at magic is not so unusual in the grand scheme of things. Maybe? But living in the context of Western modern magical tradition, I feel like an outlier, or like I am not “doing it right” – like I’m broken for not seeing magic that way. I will never feel at home in a metaphysical shop or in a Buddhist meditation. That just does nothing for me. And although witchcraft is not a religion, it is often part of a religion, and even for many of the secular, there seems to be a spiritual and otherworldy aspect of it.
But for me, there has always been only one world. That world is complex and has much that is unexplained and perhaps even has dimensions we don’t always have consistent access to. But as oddly shaped as our world may be, for me, there is still only one. And I’ve always struggled with a feeling of inadequacy because of that, even as I continue to be generally very successful in my spellwork.
Am I the only one?
You’re not the only one. I’ll add, however, that while this is largely true for me, there’s a comfort blanket aspect for me, where sometimes I turn to magic for a sense of control.
But other than that it’s not so big a feeling? I don’t do big rituals that aren’t also something else to begin with. My cleansings are cleanings too, half my spells are also recipies, etc.
I think also that it has to do with how much mystery we’re comfortable dealing with. A lot of people aren’t comfortable with not knowing things and they need to distance themselves from that, wrap the mystery in something concrete and box it up as “The Mystery”. And that’s not bad! If that’s what makes you comfortable, then good! But for others of us, myself included, I’m comfortable leaving that mystery flopped in the middle of the road and just wandering around the edges of it. It doesn’t need to be special to be special, if that makes sense?
Yes! I think this is a big aspect of it.
I don’t know all kinds of shit, and at this point in my life, I understand I’m just a dumb monkey in comparison to the universe as a whole, and I will probably continue to not understand all kinds of shit until the day I die. Lacking any answer that seems to make sense to me, I just don’t really try to answer it at all.
“The Mystery,” as you say, continues to just kinda sit there in the road and I just pass by it like, “Oh, look, The Mystery. Ok, see ya later, Mystery.” I don’t have a desire to attempt to explain things that I don’t feel there is a good answer for. All the ideas others have made for it are certainly interesting, but they’re just not for me.
Perhaps that is what it has to do with – how we handle The Mystery.
I also think of magic this way– the botany and electricity examples stood out to me because they’re how I think about it too. Why not apply existing sciences to an art that might one day be considered one? In fact, I just recently had a conversation with my father about “The Mystery”– he can’t stand it, can’t stand not knowing all the answers. Me? I mean….. if I’m meant to know then I’ll figure it out, won’t I? There’s probably a lot of “blatantly obvious” secrets of the universe staring me right in the face. If I am to comprehend them then I will, one day. No rush, no worry.
And yes, while I do work with spirits/uhhhh wibbly-wobbly beings??/gods, I just interact with them like people. People who sometimes know a whole lot more than I do about this craft I dabble in. I mean, despite the fact that I’m close with a whole host of death gods….. they’re just my family. I treat them with the respect they deserve (which is a lot imo) and they treat me like a son or a little brother. They’re much better family to me than humans have been.
It may seem very wishy-washy to an outsider, but to me it’s just life. I never had an altar, I’ve never done ritual spells. My favorite spell ingredients are salt, charcoal, and a match. Most of the time I don’t even use that. I didn’t do anything huge and elaborate to contact Hades on fathers day, I just sat down at the dinner table. I apply science to my magic because to me they’re the same subject, one is just much more advanced and much less understood. I mean I literally learned to think of them as one and the same from my high school chemistry teacher.
Magic just is. Spirits just are. Energy is everywhere and I will not countenance being blind to such an obvious part of the world we live in.
The Chaos Bitches 