Waking The Witch
A Christian Witch Book Review
Welcome to a new series in which I review witchy books from a Christian perspective. I’ll point out what I love, anything that I feel like are danger zones, and then let you decide for yourself.
Waking the Witch is part memoir, part cultural history. It includes reflections on how our culture has shaped our view of witches.
I love Pam Grossman’s all-inclusive view of witches: “At any given time, I might use the word witch to signify my spiritual beliefs, my supernatural interests, or my role as an unapologetically complex, dynamic female in a world that prefers its women to be smiling and still.” And “To be clear: you don’t have to practice witchcraft or any other alternative form of spirituality to awaken your own inner witch. You may feel attracted to her symbolism, her style, or her stories but are not about to rush out to buy a cauldron or go sing songs to the sky. Maybe you’re more of a nasty woman than a devotee of the Goddess. That’s perfectly fine: the witch belongs to you too.”
Chapters go through cultural history of various archetypes of witch. The first we see is Teen Witch, coming into her own power and sexuality, and all that represents, both for good and bad.
My favorite chapter by far was Sympathy for the She-Devil, about the witch as a consort of the devil. I don’t believe in the concept of a devil, so it was fascinating to read about the history of how our images of Satan were conceived and then linked to women. “Until the Middle Ages, he had been a very minor player in Christian theology.”
But then we read stories of women who were different in any way being linked with him. Both in real life (such as the witch trials), and in literature (both for the positive and negative). Most interesting to me were the examples of literature where it seemed like a good thing for the woman to join with Satan. He gives her freedom. Again, I don’t believe in the devil, so read this as symbolism: culture sees women who are different as evil; as influenced by something outside their control.
Any woman who is lives freely and pleasurably, any woman who escapes oppression, is a witch in bed with the devil. We should take note that this is a cultural construct, not a biblical one. “We call witch any woman who wants.”
Grossman then goes into witches and female body taboos, the Spiritualist movement, art as magic (check out Remedios Varo’s work… holy moly), covens, and political resistance. It’s an encompassing book, covering many ways the archetype of witch is used, some magical, some merely feminine deemed evil.
Danger zones: I didn’t feel like there were any. Grossman didn’t teach any practices, just cultural history. There is some implication of Christianity as having caused terrible things in history (which is not untrue), but no attack on Christians in general, nor any sense that Christians are less-than or stupid.
What I love: The inclusiveness of Grossman’s definitions of witch. There was no snootiness about anyone not being witchy enough. All are welcome.
