havencraft:

I recently went to see a forum where a Pagan speaker was representing Paganism in an interfaith context. Before that, I attended Pagan Pride earlier in the month.

In response to the ahistorical and inaccurate statements I’ve now witnessed repeatedly, let me just say:

1. Not all Pagans are witches and certainly not all witches are Pagan. Seriously, there are secular, atheist, agnostic, humanist, Christian, Jewish, etc witches. They do not identify as Pagan. 

2. Not all Pagans worship a God and Goddess. Certainly, they do not all believe that all gods and goddesses are faces for such. 

3. Not all Pagans believe in or worship “Mother Earth.”

4. Not all Pagans believe in a strict duality of “masculine energy” and “feminine energy.” In fact, historically speaking, most of them didn’t. Gender essentialism is not found in every path. It’s transphobic and erasing, non-binary phobic and erasing, and really damaging even to those who do identify with the gender they were designated at birth. 

5. Many Pagans do not all follow “Harm None” or the “Rule of Three”. That’s a Wiccan thing and even then, not an “All Wiccans” thing. 

6. Some of us practice cursing. Stop “No True Scotsmanning” the practice. Stop calling it “black magick”, that’s racist.  

7. No, cursing is not the same thing as hexing. Hex is just the German and Pennsylvania Dutch word for spell. Hence hexenmeister meaning spell master. Saying a hex is always a curse is like saying a spell is always a curse. 

8. There was no great period of a grand unified Witch Cult that all got along and worshiped the same before the evil Christian men came along. Pagans killed each other over whose gods were better. Gods were used in propaganda machines – many of our myths boil down to, “My god can beat up your god.” Also, Rome burned witches long before it was Catholic. 

9. Flying ointment is not applied via the vagina using a broom handle. Don’t do that. That is a fantastic way to absorb poisons through a mucous membrane and get splinters. Seriously, that’s how you get splinters in your vagina. Or die. Or both.

10. I am less concerned about the persecution of affluent, white, ciscentric, heteronormative, gender essentialist, psuedo-liberal Paganism than I am about the ongoing oppression, exclusion, erasure, and appropriation of other cultures by modern Paganism and the ongoing problems with sexual misconduct by Pagan leaders. No, your persecution complex really, really doesn’t override any of those concerns. 

11. There is no Witch Pope. No one can excommunicate a witch for not witching the way they want them to witch. Please stop saying there is only one way to witch and that you speak for it.