Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power (Witchcraft Bestseller)

by Pam Grossman

more than a quarter of US adults—27 percent—now say that they think of themselves as spiritual but not religious,

Magic is made in the margins.

She is solitary. She comes in threes. She’s a member of a coven. Sometimes she’s a he. She is stunning, she is hideous, she is insidious, she is ubiquitous. She is our downfall. She is our deliverance.

More than anything, though, the witch is a shining and shadowy symbol of female power and a force for subverting the status quo.

Whether the witch is depicted as villainous or valorous, she is always a figure of freedom—both its loss and its gain. She is perhaps the only female archetype who is an independent operator.

The witch owes nothing. That is what makes her dangerous. And that is what makes her divine.

Witches have power on their own terms.

she is a fully rounded symbol of female oppression and liberation.

To paraphrase: someone who uses magic for malevolent means; any person who uses magic at all (whether good, bad, or neutral); a follower of nature-based Paganism, such as Wicca; and a figure of transgressive female power.

We call “witch” any woman who wants.

We watch the witch with great interest, because some part of us wants her to win. After all, we too fear being crushed, drowned, vanquished by the alpha Dorothys.

Yes, I’m a good witch and a good person. But I also embrace complexity. I intend to wear a black cape over my proverbial pink gown. To laugh too loud and get real mad and defend myself and the people I care about. I want more out of life than to float gently along in a bubble. I want to wear the pointy hat and the crown. To live as vividly as I can, as I am. To be wicked and winsome and wild and whole. I want to be more than either/or.

“No . . . we modern witches believe life should be a ball! . . . Besides soft, gracious living doesn’t reduce our powers one iota!”

When you’re a weird kid, you learn to put guardrails around the things you love. You keep them hidden heart-deep, lest someone try to take them, mock them, or co-opt them out of cruelty or just plain clumsiness.

magic is neither black nor white. That the only good or bad is in the heart of the witch.