Becoming Dangerous Witchy Femmes, Queer Conjurers, and
Magical Rebels
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REDDIT, RETIN-A, AND RESISTANCE: AN ALCHEMIST'S GUIDE TO SKINCARE
Sam Maggs
THE FUTURE IS COMING FOR YOU
Deb Chachra
MY WITCH'S SABBATH OF SHORT SKIRTS, LONG KISSES, AND BDSM
Mey Rude
BUZZCUT SEASON
Larissa Pham
THE HARPY
Meredith Yayanos
FINGERTIPS
merritt k
RED GLITTER
Sophie Saint Thomas
TOUCHING PENNIES, PAINTING NAILS
Sim Bajwa
RITUAL IN DARKNESS
Kim Boekbinder
GAYUMA
Sara David
PUSHING BEAUTY UP THROUGH THE CRACKS
Katelan Foisy
RITUALISING MY HUMANITY
J. A. Micheline
SIMULATING CONTROL
Nora Khan
I AM, MYSELF, A BODY OF WATER
Leigh Alexander
CONTRIBUTORS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Foreword
If the broom
fits witch it
is time to
ride it
act up
resist
—the Yerbamala Collective
What does it mean to resist? When “resist” is the slogan of a
multibillion-dollar political machine. When #resist is a viral meme. When
“resist” is printed on shirts and hats and stickers you get for joining the
right email list, and resistance has been co-opted by the very systems
you're trying to resist?
In Becoming Dangerous, witchy femmes, queer conjurers, and magical
rebels offer answers. Through twenty-one wildly different essays, the
authors lay bare their prismatic perspectives on what it means to challenge
the social, political, and cultural forces that seek to marginalize and erase
them. Rituals of reclamation. Aesthetic spellcraft. Tapping into the earth
for answers. Cracking open your ancestral powers. These are their routes
to redemption, the way these writers summon the strength to resist.
Now more than ever, witches, occultists, and magicians are joining the
magical resistance. Healing circles for survivors, mass hexes against
fascists and abusers, and collective protection spells are proliferating. The
pervasive notion that the political and the spiritual are contradictory is
slowly being dispelled.
When I started teaching my college course, The Legacy of The Witch, at
the New School five years ago, incorporating social justice into
discussions about witchcraft seemed novel to the students taking the class.
Fascinating, yes, but removed from reality, they'd say. They perceived the
political realm as devoid of grace and of magic. They understood
witchcraft to be all aesthetic and no action. But every year since then, as
the American government has doubled down on exclusionary, punitive,
and oppressive policies, my students arrive more and more primed to view
the necessity of studying the two in tandem. Many even come to the table
well-versed in both subjects, already part of magical communities putting
on their own protests and using ritual as intimate parts of their own acts of
resistance.
When studying witchcraft and social justice movements of the past and
present, cyclical patterns emerge. As a fraught political climate simmers
and comes to a roil, the occult is often the next mode of defense, of
reproach. This holds today as much as it did in the age of second wave
feminism and neopaganism, and in the time of suffragists and Spiritualism.
Historically, many of the greatest acts of resistance have been informed by
spiritual practice. And some of the most nourishing spiritual practices have
been borne within society's stifling political strictures, like so many buds
finally bursting through fallow soil.
In 1843, Isabella Baumfree received an otherworldly call to serve. She
christened herself Sojourner Truth. She traversed the country to share and
teach and extemporize about womanhood and inequity and the painful
realities of racism and sexism that were tearing America apart. Truth, a
former slave, was a devout Christian. By today's standards, she was much
more. Historian Nell Irvin Painter argues that Truth's syncretic spiritual
practice, a mix of West African animistic beliefs, American folk magic,
and Dutch Calvinism and Methodism makes her a witch in the
contemporary sense of the word. Her rituals were public, massive and
mesmeric, drawing hundreds hypnotized by her impassioned oratory as she
planted the seeds that would later bloom into Womanism and
Intersectionality.
In 1974, a community of lesbians in Wolf Creek, Oregon birthed
Womanspirit, the first quarterly magazine dedicated to both spirituality and
feminism. In the midst of the women's liberation movement, these women
were frustrated with the limitations of patriarchal religion but didn't want
to eschew spirituality altogether. They took the formation of
consciousness-raising groups that were central to early feminism and saw
the magic inherent within such sharing circles. “Feminism tells us to trust
ourselves,” wrote Jean Mountaingrove, one of the founders of
Womanspirit. “We began to trust our own feelings, we began to believe in
our own orgasms. These were the first things. Now we are beginning to
have spiritual experiences and, for the first time in thousands of years, we
trust it.”
In 2017, an anonymous group of anti-fascist witches joined together to
hex the white supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchy. Under the Yerbamala
Collective moniker, this amorphous cadre of activists released free,
downloadable zines and spellbooks decrying racism, sexism, transphobia,
Islamophobia, and, above all, complacency. “Complacency is anti-magic,”
one poem of theirs declares. “Witches of all genders ride now.”
“The Yerbamala Collective is a purposefully porous group of witches so
numerous you might as well call us the stars,” a member told Janus
Kopfstein in an interview published on Medium. “We are everywhere,
behind every fascist, waiting for the fist to be our own. We started as a
conversation between friends, which spread to other friends around the
country. We covened together in the encrypted byways of the internet to
form our first response and rally cry . . . We are claiming our righteous
anger and using that too as a fuel. This fight will take so much away from
us. It's important we remember who we are: divine beings with divine
power.”
This divinity, not granted by outside forces but cultivated and claimed
internally, is palpably present in Becoming Dangerous. Through healing
rituals of logomancy, the authors of this spell-binding anthology write their
realities into existence, revealing how fallible flesh can become armor, and
why fighting to live life on your own terms is sacred. Each chapter can act
as a response to the contemporary question of survival and resistance.
What it means to actively counter narratives and structures that seek to
oppress and keep us from not only surviving but thriving under patriarchy,
white supremacy, late capitalism, and the searing traumas attendant to all
three.
“In truth, my rituals—the same ones I use to perform my undangerous
and thoroughly human body—are weapons,” writes J.A. Micheline in
“Ritualising My Humanity.” “In unabashedly affirming my own dignity, I
am becoming dangerous.”
The witchy femmes, queer conjurers, and magical rebels in this volume
know there is nothing more dangerous than the self-possessed. Those who
know power lies in their ability to channel and harness and subvert the
tools at their disposal. Those who alchemize their pain into healing and
beauty, overcoming and community. They remind us that there is no one
way to resist, only that it is imperative we do.
—Kristen J. Sollée, author of Witches, Sluts, Feminists
Introduction
The difference between the witch and the layperson is that a witch
already knows they are powerful. The layperson may only suspect. To tap
into this power, a witch performs rituals with purpose, with intent, and
with an enviable aesthetic. Some people say witches are irrational, absurd,
or ridiculous, but in response, witches smile knowingly. They see the irony
in the accusations: Rituals have been and continue to be performed in all
societies throughout time to such an extent that the performance of ritual
could be said to be the defining characteristic of human beings. What are
we if not the culmination of our efforts to construct meaning where there is
none, to pull reason from the absurd?
Currently, the world is very similar in look and feel to a dumpster on
fire. It's been this way for a while, so we keep trying to come up with ways
to make it better, or easier, or kinder. But as of yet, nothing has really
worked. Not fighting for it, dying for it, praying for it, working for it, or
wishing for it. As a result, we feel powerless. In response to this failure,
many have resorted to coming up with ways to explain it, to look at the
world around them and see it as normal. ‘This is fine.’
This book is full of the ways in which queer conjurers, witchy femmes,
magical rebels, and people like you (or maybe nothing like you) resist the
onslaught of a world of irrational happenings and the normalisation of their
world on fire. It offers personal explorations from the authors of how
they've created their own irrational actions that give them the strength,
patience, community, and hope required to survive. These arbitrary
activities are their rituals, and this book tells us how and why they work
for them.
What makes these arbitrary actions into rituals is the intention behind
them. Witches already know this. So do religions. They know that rituals
don't mean anything on their own, separate from any context; it's the
intention that makes a series of arbitrary actions powerful. But unlike
religious rituals — which are prescribed by someone else and must be
performed in a certain way — the rituals we discover and create for
ourselves, like the ones described by the authors in this book, can grow out
of our own bodies, spirits, and desires. The act of deliberately choosing to
apply significance to our actions and to cultivate a deeper meaning to them
is powerful. We can use ritual to gain control, and not just any kind of
control — a specific type of control that requires no one else's approval or
permission. It is completely self-wrought and that makes it incredibly
powerful.
Becoming Dangerous is a book about using ritual to resist. When so
many forces outside ourselves are trying to take away our rights, freedoms,
and agency, adhering to practices that centre us as fully-realised people
dependent on and owing only to the earth, those we love, and the
development of ourselves — instead of to elected officials or systems of
oppression and those who uphold them — can't be a bad idea. There is a
power disparity in our world. Those with power are not keen on sharing,
and those of us without are left with discovering ways to summon it for
ourselves. Discovering power that hasn't been given to us begrudgingly or
allocated sparingly makes us threatening. Power makes us dangerous.
I sent a draft of this introduction to my friend Cara Ellison, the first
author in this book actually, and I told her ‘I just want it to answer the
question, “Why did I make a book about rituals?”’ And Cara replied
instantly, ‘Because everything else hasn't worked.’ Oh, right. Yes, that.
That is why I made a book about rituals.
This world is hard and unreasonable and there's those within it who
would prefer you to be powerless —
But:
I see you. I know you're tired. I know the world is a hard place to
navigate. And you are right to have hoped it would've been, if not easier, at
least better by now. Instead you're left waiting (for equal rights, for gender
to be recognised as a spectrum, for reconciliation, for self-acceptance, for
the right to choose, for the patriarchy to burn, for universal healthcare, for
access, for it not to be audacious to demand decency and kindness). I see
you. And I'm glad you're still here. Still struggling, resisting, fighting,
yearning for all the above and more. And I want you to know, like so many
witches already know, that you're powerful.
Find your rituals, find your power, find your reason.
Become dangerous.
Katie West
Editor, Becoming Dangerous
Edinburgh, January 2018
Notes from the Editors
Having a style guide for a book makes it an easier read; inconsistent
expressions of punctuation, spellings, or other grammatical rules can pull
the reader out of a narrative. However, at times while editing Becoming
Dangerous, we've made exceptions or changes to our guide in order to
respect the authors, their preferences, and their practices.
Some words have various spellings used throughout the book; for
example, ‘magic’ is also expressed as ‘magick’, and this has been a
conscious choice by each author. Another example is the capitalisation of
‘Moon’ — several authors prefer this spelling as it reflects the importance
of the moon in their practice. There is also a pronoun in Catherine
Hernandez's essay — *their — that is how her lover refers to themselves.
In regards to spellings of groups of people, we've followed the rule of
‘always go with what those people are calling themselves’. The word
‘indigenous’ has been capitalised when speaking about Indigenous people
in Canada. When referring to indigenous cultures of other regions, it has
been left lowercase or to the discretion of the author. The word nonbinary
has been expressed without the hyphen in most cases (subject to author's
preference), and our reasoning for doing so is that hyphens are often used
when something new enters the English language with the help of a prefix.
Once that word has been around for a while and is accepted into normal
usage, it often loses the hyphen. We felt expressing it without a hyphen
shows, in language, an acceptance and embracing of nonbinary people.
However, we recognize that, as Maranda Elizabeth — who feels the word
non-binary/nonbinary may currently be more accepted in language but not
in concept and understanding of lived experience — graciously explained
to us, having to identify with words that describe what people are not
(nonbinary, genderless) rather than what they are isn't ideal. We've tried to
do the best we can with the language currently available to us.
Katie West and Jasmine Elliott
Editors, Becoming Dangerous
Content Warnings
This book has twenty-one essays covering a vast range of topics from a
deep pool of personal experience: from boxing to gardening, from dealing
with post-traumatic stress disorder to dealing with racism, from nail
extensions to slut magic. We want all our readers to be able to enjoy the
experience of reading through this book, so we're including a list of
content or trigger warnings for each essay in this anthology.
Our goal at Fiction & Feeling is to elevate underrepresented voices and
topics, which can mean that some readers are engaging with topics,
experiences, and viewpoints for the first time and may find this strange or
uncomfortable. Other readers may find certain topics more difficult to deal
with than others. The content of an essay may bring up painful memories
or trigger panic attacks. Many topics could potentially be the trigger for
such reactions, though there are some main culprits such as abuse, self-
harm, violence, blood, war, rape, and eating disorders. Including a content
warning at the beginning of a piece of writing that gives a quick
description of what can be expected can act as a heads-up for those who
need it. Content warnings are not meant to suggest a reader stays away
from a piece of writing; rather, they hopefully give a reader some time to
prepare themselves for what they're about to encounter. This can be true
for either subjects that might cause physical and emotional distress or
themes that might be uncomfortable and challenging.
Content Warnings
TRASH-MAGIC: SIGNS & RITUALS FOR THE UNWANTED
Discussions of poverty, ableism, suicide, borderline personality
disorder
UNCENSORING MY UGLINESS
Discussions of violence, serious injury, descriptions of medical
procedures
FEMME AS IN FUCK YOU: FUCKING WITH THE PATRIARCHY ONE LIPSTICK
APPLICATION AT A TIME
Discussions of sexual assault, racism, colonialism
BEFORE I WAS A WOMAN, I WAS A WITCH
Discussions of bullying, suicide, gender dysphoria
UNDRESSING MY HEART
Discussions of war, sex
GARDEN
Discussions of excrement, death, grief
REDDIT, RETIN-A, AND RESISTANCE: AN ALCHEMIST'S GUIDE TO SKINCARE
Discussions of depression
MY WITCH'S SABBATH OF SHORT SKIRTS, LONG KISSES, AND BDSM
Discussions of sex, religion
THE HARPY
Explicit discussions of rape, abuse, self-injury, dissociation, PTSD
FINGERTIPS
Discussions of body dysmorphic disorder
RED GLITTER
Discussions of sex, non-blood bodily fluids
TOUCHING PENNIES, PAINTING NAILS
Discussions of religion
RITUAL IN DARKNESS
Discussions of sex, explicit scenes of war
GAYUMA
Discussions of oppressive political regimes, child abuse, rape
PUSHING BEAUTY UP THROUGH THE CRACKS
Discussions of colonialism, war
RITUALISING MY HUMANITY
Discussions of racism
SIMULATING CONTROL
Discussions of PTSD
