Maybe I’m behind the game, but I just realized how very pot-kettle-black things like exorcisms are.

[The_Infinite_Doctor]

I’m watching *The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina* and I just came across the scene where the ‘witch hunters’ storm the Academy. The Weird Sisters fight back with (tv) witchcraft, but then the hunters start chanting (tv) holy rites and incantations and the Sisters eyes begin bleeding.

Exactly how is only one of these things witchcraft…? They both work based in incantation (and sometimes both use potions and objects) and a power bigger than themselves. I mean it’s always been known that witch trials were about suppressing women, but for some reason this seen really drove home the ridiculous hypocrisy of it all.

May we all escape the crucible, my lovelies.

Discussion

[why0me]

I felt the same way about the big baddie in Wednesday

A preacher who hated outcasts with powers so much he

*checks notes*

Uses powers to burn the school down

Ok then hyoocrite

[namastaysexy]

So I was listening to a podcast and they actually talked about this but in a kind of more positive way than religious oppression (although they also did discuss how it seen in Catholicism too). They said it’s basically no different than a football game or music festival or any other gathering where people come together for a common cause and belief.

They pointed out how at football games (including soccer), groups gather and eat certain foods, sing certain songs, and have a wholehearted belief in the success of their team, so much so that they have talismans and rituals they do individually. Just a very interesting comparison.

Edit: a word

[Flamingo83]

I think a lot of people don’t realize early Christian leaders absolutely used witchcraft. Those spell books were either destroyed or hidden away in the Vatican. Egyptian magicians were feared and it’s why Aaron was seen as a big baddie when he threw down his staff and it became a snake that then swallowed the other snakes. They even referenced Necromancy and explicitly state Christians are to stay away from it and all magic. It’s just colonizer business.

[buttmuffin44]

In the church I was raised in, we drank the blood and ate the flesh of an undead dude, so yeah, witchcraft for sure, a weird kind I do not miss. There were also candles in wreaths that got lit by day and color and had sayings in books that went with them. Yeah.

[Ams089]

Most Christian rituals are stolen straight from pagans. They did it to help Christianity get more footholds.

[Stentata]

There’s a line in the Poetic Edda (written saga of the Norse Pantheon, kind of but not really the Vikings‘ analog to the Bible) that tells the reader that if they meet a witch woman, they are to kill her immediately. A footnote to that line clarifies that when the writer says witch woman in this context, they mean a Christian Woman.

Also, the earliest verified historical records relating to Jesus were from the 1st century and refer to him as a magician.

Oh, and coming back to the Norse thing, the Vikings believed in the Christian god. They believed in lots of gods, so Yahweh was just one more to throw into the mix.

[warlordbearman]

Exorcism is part of a millennia-long history of Christian theurgic and sympathetic ritual magic. If you find this duality as fascinating as I do, the Esoterica YouTube channel is an excellent scholarly deep dive into the history of western esotericism covering topics like medieval clerical necromancy, feminist theosophical gospels, and the question of whether the historical Jesus was an itinerant magician. The fact is, Christianity and magic have coexisted since the birth of Christianity as a concept, with varying degrees of official tolerance. Moreover, Christian esotericism is one of the strongest influences on modern media’s ideas of what “magic” looks like. Common concepts like the Aristotelian four-element system, the “as above so below” idea that acting upon a microcosm affects the macrocosm, and a lot of common allegorical imagery like the classic Rider Waite tarot have their roots in medieval Christian alchemy or heavily christian-influenced initiatory magical orders like Rosicrucianism and the Golden Dawn. These depictions of magic look the same because they are extraordinarily similar, drawing from shared cultural ideas and ancient practices that resonate for reasons beyond us-vs-them divisions. To me, this feels like more than hypocrisy — it feels like human beings on both sides of a cultural chasm tapping into a common truth of power, will, and transformation. There’s no doubt that Christian magic has been used by large numbers of malfeasant practitioners to enact terrible harm — painful and violating exorcisms on ailing, neurodivergent, or disobedient people in positions of disempowerment is a prime example. But in observing that truth of history, we have to also admit that Christian magicians and theurges are tapping into a deep and resonant well of power, strong enough to imprint that malfeasant will (and, let’s also acknowledge, some kind and generous will) on the world, over and over again. Much of that power was syncretized from other traditions; the strategy of “if it works, take it for ourselves” — so it’s not surprising that many parts of Christian magic would mirror the practices of the outsiders from whom it was taken. It’s not surprising that practitioners from the edges or beyond the boundaries of Christianity would mirror their syncretized practices, hoping to tap into that deep and resonant well. And it’s not surprising that media created from a Christian perspective would mirror that power in a sinister way, reflecting the fear that a similarly powerful malfeasance might be turned back upon them.