NYT: "When Did Everybody Become a Witch?" -- Really? - 24 Oct 2019

 

 

NYT: "When Did Everybody Become a Witch?"

From the New York Times:

When Did Everybody Become a Witch?

Witch parties, witch protests and a bevy of new books: We have reached peak witch.

I bet we haven’t. We haven’t yet begun to witch.

By Jessica Bennett
Oct. 24, 2019

… Real witches are roaming among us, and they’re seemingly everywhere.

Haven’t you noticed?

Witches are your millennial co-workers doing tarot card readings on their lunch breaks, and professional colleagues encouraging you to join them for a New Moon ceremony aimed at “career success.” (This happened to me the other day.)

Witches are influencers who use the hashtag #witchesofinstagram to share horoscopes, spells and witchy memes, and they are anti-Trump resistance activists carrying signs that say “Hex the Patriarchy” (also the title of a new book of spells) and “We are the granddaughters of the witches you weren’t able to burn.”

Witches are panelists, they are podcasters, they are members of The Wing (which calls itself a “coven”), they are in-house residents at swanky Manhattan hotels and some might say that one is even a presidential candidate, Marianne Williamson. (Alyssa Milano, of “Charmed” fame, recently fund-raised for Williamson. Coincidence?)

“I think everyone probably is the son or the daughter of a witch,” said Augusten Burroughs, the best-selling memoirist, whose new book, “Toil & Trouble,” tells the story of his own witchy coming out.

“‘Witch’ is a loaded word, but I do love it,” he said, noting that his husband thinks it needs some P.R. help. “I mean, I didn’t choose to write this book. It just came. And that tells me that something has been unlocked. It’s time. It is the moment somehow for witches to come out — in all their vibrant diversity.”

Not to mention witches’ diverse vibrancy.

Thank goodness, we can progress into a glorious future of hexes.