Urzula Urzua
So You Want To Be a Witch?
I recently found out that one of my co-workers was a witch. A real one. Just one day, out of the blue, it came up so I asked her if I could do a research paper on her and her circle, a group of witches. Maybe at first she thought I was kidding, but she asked her circle and they consented. She also lent me some of her books on witchcraft and a beginner’s book so I could be familiar with their practices and beliefs. What I wanted to know was, How did they come to find each other and how do they stick together? Being Wiccan has never been an easy task. Being any type of different is difficult. So what keeps them going? What keeps them practicing through adversity? These are my questions.
My hypothesis was that the circle will be a small, close knit group and most of their close friends and significant others would be in the circle as well, or at least part of another practicing circle. People tend to seek out others like themselves. Wicca is not really mainstream and doesn’t uphold the main Judeo-Christian tenets to which most of the U.S. adheres. A circle is an excellent example of a plausibility structure in order to keep their belief structure going, and as a feasibility structure in order to have group rituals. The circle serves as a plausibility structure because it is a forum in which they can come together and discuss their beliefs. One of the members said that it is a safe place where he can express his views on life and not be looked at as if he were crazy. Since they come together on a weekly basis, or daily in the case of the married couple, they can get their beliefs reinforced by the other around them that have the same beliefs. They can bring in knowledge and receive from others.
I decided the best way to gather my information was through an interview or a group discussion. I did not really want to do a one-on-one interview because I felt the flow of ideas from others would help to bring other issues to the surface, issues of which I was not really aware. So on the day of their usual circle, I was invited to my co-worker/friend’s house to sit around and talk.
First of all, I must state that my friend really wanted me to start going to these other meetings - The Society for Creative Anachronism, or SCA. I could not figure out why. I tried, but something always came up, not to mention the fact that I work on those days till 6 and the meetings were at 6. Finally I went to the one on the scheduled day of the interview. Basically SCA is a dance group dedicated to learning more about medieval times and that way of life. So I actually joined in on the dancing. During that meeting my friend pointed out those in the circle. All 6 circle members were present. That was why she had wanted me to go to the SCA meetings, to get to know them. Well, I didn’t know, but the circle is actually a subset of SCA, an interesting fact which will surface at different points.
But after the dancing, we went to my friend’s house for the circle. We sat around the living room and made our introductions. My friend had already explained to them what I wanted, and to me that anonymity was of utmost importance. I explained to them exactly what my paper was to be about and passed around the research outline. When everyone was clear on the topic, the discussion began.
Let me point out right now that I was surprised about the makeup of the group, 5 men and 1 woman. I thought there would be an even split or more females than males but I was wrong. I have always associated Wicca and other pagan religions to being more woman-centered and expected more female participants. I suppose Disney has gotten to me as well. All of his fairy godmothers and evil witches are female. So even as a researcher, I found myself already biased and corrupted by society.
The first topic of discussion was to get a general biography on the members and decide by what names they would like to be known in the paper. My friend, to be referred to as Dolphina, chose this name because it was one of her totem spirits. She is 21 and the lone woman in the group. Bear, the oldest man in the group at 27, is the dance leader in SCA. Featherhead, age 22, is married to Dolphina. Bob is the youngest in the group at 19. Peter is 24, a philosophy doctoral candidate, and has the most formal education of the group. At first Luke told me he was 14,000 years old, and I took this to be because of his past lives. Reincarnation is a major tenant of Wicca. The others were willing to take this as fact, so in his case the circle serves as a plausibility structure for his belief of his age. He has been in his current form for 21 years.
Since I had known Dolphina the best and the longest, she started the discussion. The first question was how did you get started in magick? (Magick is the preferred spelling in this case, since magic conjures up the image of David Copperfield and others.) For Dolphina, it started when she moved to a new school in 6th grade. She had come from a larger city to a small town in Indiana and was ostracized by her peers. They accused her of being a witch and she found herself at the receiving end of a lot of pranks. She decided to look into this witch thing and to find out what these people did anyway. It was a self fulfilling prophecy in her words. The pranks were becoming too much to handle. The last straw was when she found a dead cat hanging in her locker. After that, her parents moved her to a different school. But Dolphina was hooked. From the books that she read and research she had done, she decided that she was a witch.
With the others in the circle, their beginnings into magick are not so clear cut. Luke, the 14,000 year old, has always practiced magick. Growing up, his neighbors were Wiccan. He also read a lot as a youngster. He could channel certain things and felt a certain added texture as he moved through life. He summoned a demon at the age of 6. He was apprenticed as a child, which means he learned witchcraft one-on-one from someone else. Unlike Dolphina, whose plausibility structure came at first from just books, Luke had some interactions with others early on with similar beliefs.
Bear too had always believed in magick or at least wanted to believe. This led to his finding out on his own a greater understanding, both of himself and of magick. He describes this behavior as "anti-skeptic", whereas Bob is the skeptic of the group. Even as the circle was forming, he had his doubts. He was willing to talk about magick to the others and read books on the topic. It was not until he actually felt something himself while inside the magick circle that the got his proof that there is something out there.
Peter, the philosopher, has always been interested in things like "Dungeons and Dragons" and other fantasy games and books. At 13 years old he became a solitary witch. Peter and Dolphina are the only members who have been in circles previous to this one, but Featherhead has been a solitary witch and part of a duo. His wife Dolphina brought him into the group, but he too has always believed in magic. Even though for some their plausibility structures were small they were powerful enough to guide them along until they found a larger group setting.
During this discussion an issue that came to the surface was how much of magick is in the general public and society. Peter pointed out that "D&D" was really popular with preteens and teens when it first appeared and though the hubbub has died down, there is still a strong following even here at IU. In fact the members of this particular circle have been involved in role playing games at one point or another in their lives. Featherhead pointed out that Halloween is an accepted Pagan tradition in the mainstream for the most part, and everyone loves the Wizard of Oz. According to him magick is part of society even though it’s a subculture. Bob pointed out that a lot of people are very interested in ghosts, spirits, and hauntings. People believe but there is still a stigma attached. People can claim to have "bad vibes", but they may attribute it to something else, and not necessarily to magick. I thought it was very interesting that they were aware of what magick could be mistaken for or overlooked in the general public, and how we can be socialized the attribute these feelings to anything but magick. Several of the circle also pointed out that children are made to unlearn a lot of what comes naturally, or in other words, socialized into the Judeo-Christian beliefs of the majority in this country. Peter spoke of talking to the rain and just being one with nature when he was little. It came back to him as he began to know more about magick.
I also asked them how they got into the circle. Hands down SCA was the beginning point. They were all a part of SCA when the topic of magick came up. It was after a SCA meeting and they were sitting around a fountain. They were skirting the issue and no one actually said the word "magick" until Peter just blurted it out. Then it turned out that they were all interested in magick. Bob had just happened to be there. He hadn’t been coming to SCA meetings regularly, but after this discussion and the formation of the circle he now goes to SCA all the time.
I then asked them what keeps them in the circle. Since they had all known each other from SCA, they had already formed friendships in that group and those carried over into the circle and became stronger. There is a lot of trust involved in certain rituals, and they feel they can be open and have no false pretenses, according to Featherhead. This is unlike the general public. Peter is fascinated with magick. Even if the circle were to dissolve, they would still see each other because they have different groups in common, namely SCA and role playing games. Bear stays in the group because it is reassuring to him to have a group of people that "you can describe your feeling, views and beliefs, and not have them look at your like you’re crazy." The rest of the circle agreed.
We then came to the topic of significant others and closest friends. "Closest friends" was loosely defined as someone to whom you could tell your deepest, darkest secrets. I was trying to find out if their closest friends were in the circle. As for significant others, Dolphina and Featherhead are married to each other, and Peter’s girlfriend is not in this particular circle, but is in another Pagan group. Bear’s significant other "is not opposed but not involved". As for Bear’s closest friends, all of his close friends are in SCA but not necessarily in the circle, and not all of his SCA friends know that he is Wiccan. All of Dolphina’s closest friends are in the circle. Peter’s closest friends are either in the circle or coworkers. There is no overlap between these two groups. He "uses one to escape the other." For Featherhead, he joined SCA two years ago and those are his closest friends. The other friends he has are people he has known for over 6 years. Bob and Luke have known each other since grade school and are now better friends than before. Overall, involvement in the group has lead to the deepening of friendships among the group members
I also had them go around the circle and tell us what religions their parents were, what religion they were raised in, if any, and if their parents knew about their current practices. No one was raised Wiccan nor had parents who were practicing witches though Featherhead thinks that his mother is practicing some sort of Pagan religion. Featherhead and Peter were both raised Methodist and are the only 2 who were raised under some sort of organized religion. The rest came from very liberal homes and were encouraged for the most part to make their own decisions about religion. Even Peter’s parents were encouraging when Peter decided that Methodism wasn’t for him. The only advice they gave him was "Be anything but Mormon."
As for their parents knowing, none of them have divulged this information with them. Dolphina put this quite poignantly when she said that it bothers her very much that she cannot share this very important part of her life with her parents. This is a huge piece of her life and she feels that she must keep it to herself. She said that the only thing that would get her to leave witchcraft would be to make her father happy if were to find out and be upset. Bear says that he is Unitarian if questioned. An interesting point with Bear is that he would rather talk to people about his being gay than about magick to anyone besides the circle. Bob said that he thinks his father sort of believes but attributes mystical things to other sources. Luke’s parents do not know, but were aware of the Wiccans next door and were OK with them. He thinks that his parents are OK with it in theory, but it’s not something for their son. Peter’s parents know he is a philosophy of religion student and that he has some weird beliefs. His parents are uncomfortable with his eclectic beliefs. His brother is aware of some of his practices but Peter feels his brother is not ready for the whole picture. He feels that certain terms need to be phrased in different ways depending on who you are talking to, like substitution mysticism for magick. Bear said that some stuff just "wierds people out."
I thought this group was ideal for a sociological paper because the group fits a lot of the plausibility and feasibility structure ideas. In terms of plausibility structures, these people tend to hang around people with beliefs and interests similar to their own and their beliefs get reinforced on a weekly basis if not daily from their significant other in the cases of Featherhead, Dolphina and Peter. The group was started as a subset from another group, SCA, in which they already knew they had some common interest. In the case of Bob, his involvement with the circle led to a greater involvement with SCA. In terms of feasibility structures, a group of 6 lends itself to more involved rituals and less expense for the individual in the case of buying supplies. Their small number also helps with cohesion of the group, in that there is time to get to know everyone intimately, but then again, because there are so few, there could be some fighting which could possibly lead to the dissolvement of the group.
If someone were to expand on my research, I would suggest a larger circle or perhaps different circles of various sizes. I think that the group dynamic would change given different sizes. Also, I would like to investigate circles that were all male or all female. Different ages could be a factor as well. This was a fairly new circle and the oldest member was not even 30. I think greater age would yield greater wisdom. Similar to the article we read about returning to orthodox Judaism, I think an interesting question to pose would be whether or not there was a difference across gender lines of entering a circle. I also would have liked to study a family or two of witches, or to have found some people whose parents were Wiccan, but they themselves were something else, and what brought about that change.