In a place where crosses hang above every door, some quietly trace pentacles in the dirt.
Florida, USA: All Hallow’s Eve’s celebrations are well underway of costume parties, candy collecting, and sweet treats, tricks, and frights painting across the nation as twilight sets in. Before heading out for the night, 27-year-old Mallory lights another candle on an altar dedicated to Anubis, the Egyptian Protector of the Dead, during an elaborate ritual to honor her ancestors and invite the chosen dead to wander her space once again. Her clothing is moderate – it seems she hadn’t dressed up at all. “This is how we typically look,” she says as incense smoke dances around like wispy snakes. “We look like everyone else. I won’t mind going outside in full witchy glam tonight – tonight is safe.”
Across state lines, 41-year old kitchen witch Aranea prepares offerings of soul cakes, cookies, cat treats, and sliced apples for her ritual of honoring all souls forgotten, familiar, and wandering during Samhain, the Witches’ term for Halloween. Unlike the haunted houses down the street, her home creeks and groans with permanent unseen visitors, with items often misplaced and found in strange hiding spots. “It’s just always been a way of life,” she states at the beginning of the interview. “[My practice] is incredibly personal…I learned the hard way to keep it hidden. I do not tell anyone that I am a witch unless I feel [they’re] open to it.”
For Mallory and Aranea, hiding in plain sight, what they refer to as “being stuck in the broom closet” is indeed a way of life. One is a family tradition; the other was discovered as a calling. Across the American South, those who identify with modern witchcraft, paganism, or any nature-based spirituality often walk a fine line between private faith and public silence. But why is it this way?
The Name of the Witch
“I think people that hate witches hate them for the wrong reasons,” Mallory states when asked about her practice. As an solitary-turned-coven eclectic witch, she forges a spiritual path of her own: molding her Craft into something incredibly personal and meaningful. In her decade-long practice, she’s revealed to only make a handful of connections who know she’s a Witch. “People enjoy the fictional idea of witches, not so much the real thing. They much rather hold onto the outdated idea or misinformation than learn what being a witch actually is.”
Arenea shares a similar feeling. Both were raised in predominantly conservative regions, and while neither show ill will towards the Christian religion, both report they do not feel safe openly advertising their beliefs, traditions, and customs. “Finding like-minded people has been practically impossible. I’m in an area of the Bible Belt, as it’s called, where being a Witch is not something you want to say too loudly.”
When asked of the reactions when people find out of their practice, common stereotypes arise: Witches are evil, constantly seek to harm others, worship the Christian devil, perform blood sacrifices, and curse people.
“I’m just the “quirky spiritual” person,” Mallory says. “Until someone crosses a line. Suddenly, I’m the witch, and everyone’s scared.”
The term “witch” has a long negative connotative history, with a general definition describing it “to mean harmful magic performed by people of low social status”. Both witches concede enduring interactions that began with the common witchy stereotype and quickly spiraled out of control. Historians state that society’s fear of witches has long been shaped by Western Christian beliefs; at its worst, “in late-medieval and early modern Europe…[Christian] authorities came to consider the practitioners of such magic to be members of large, organized, explicitly diabolical cults.”. The infamous witch hunts and trials of the 16th and 17th centuries are often viewed through the lens of the Enlightenment, which cast the medieval Church as a force of superstition and intolerance – an image that shapes the stereotypes and how we think about witches today.
“We don’t levitate on brooms,” Mallory laughs, “we can’t bend fire, read the future, shapeshift into cats, or anything like that. People don’t realize that cursing and hexing involves so much prolonged energy and time and it’s typically done as a last resort. Who wants to waste their energy doing that when it could be channeled into something productive for yourself, you know?”
Meanwhile, Arenea finishes what she calls a honey-jar: a common, sealed spell with the intention of sweetening life. “It’s often a matter of having a public mask to hide behind…to avoid any kind of trouble and it’s exhausting.” Arenea recalls a few instances where some conversations were not as constructive as she hoped they’d be. “It’s like living in two worlds.”
The start of Fear
How deep does this fear go and where did it originate? In an analysis of its history, witchcraft’s modified definition was meant to “[look upon] witchcraft as quantitatively and qualitatively the single greatest threat to Christian European civilization”. By the year 1100, churchmen spread word of pagan religious practices being superstitions, convincing the general masses that pagans were devils in disguises performing forbidden magic. This carried well into the era of pandemic fear in the years of roughly 1430 to 1660, and even further on into the infamous Salem Witch Trials in the year 1692. When one was accused of witchcraft, death was a very real consequence that could follow. During the short reign of terror of the Salam trials, nineteen were hanged and one was pressed to death. Another scholarly article covering the subject of witchcraft demographics concerning culture and location defines the term as “an ability of certain people to intentionally cause harm via supernatural means”, solidifying these women’s fears of going public – and by extension, possibly many others worldwide. It is no wonder, then, that in everyday life, witches like Arenea and Mallory share what is called the “broom closet.”
The start of Change
Can an open dialogue initiate change towards these attitudes and perceptions of these practices and religions? What is witchcraft from sources of those who’ve practiced for decades? “It requires discipline, learning, and a willingness to take risks, chances, experiment, and all the while believe that what you’re doing is going to work.” Arenea explains as her army of familiars – nine cats and a senior dog – crowd around her as she works her magic. “It’s…no different than religious texts or icons or anything else.”
“We have alters, we pray, we hold rituals, we thank our deities; in its simplest form we are no different than any faith on the planet. It’s just a different viewpoint.” Mallory adds.
As the topic of witchcraft trends within the younger generations, there is evidence linking witchcraft as being present with all socio-demographic categories. However, the superstitions and the misguided information keeps witches like Arenea from outwardly expressing themselves as openly as their Christian counterparts. “The younger generations are a bit more tolerant, if not downright amused, at the idea…but it’s not fully accepted. And the older [generation], well, they’ll still threaten Hellfire. I might risk it,” she adds in regards to the idea of expressing herself fully, “but that’s rare. Around here, there is a real chance of getting followed home, your car keyed, pamphlets stuffed in the mailbox. It’s not worth it.”
On very rare occasions, Mallory feels comfortable expressing her practice with subtle imagery – clothing choices depicting moon phases, occult symbols, and the like, and commented that people think it’s a “fashion aesthetic and I’m happy letting them think that”. She further elaborates on the times she’s worn witchcraft symbols of protection, the pentacle for example, had sparked an interesting consideration. “I normally wear it under my shirt so it doesn’t bother people because [they] don’t actually understand what it represents…but when I don’t hide it, people assume I’m Jewish and then I have to explain the difference of the symbols. I still get the response of “no, you’re Jewish”. When I’m told that…it makes me believe that people put witchcraft at the lowest rung of societal norms as being acceptable.”
The echoes of the past continue shaping how we view those walking a different spiritual path – but perhaps the future begins with a simple idea: can we make space for understanding where once there was only suspicion? What might we discover if we stop asking whether someone is a witch, and start asking why we’re still afraid of them?