WitchesVsPatriarchy is a safe space for witches of all backgrounds.

[sailorjupiter28titan]

It has come to our attention that users from historically oppressed cultures are being silenced in popular witchcraft communities for defending their closed practices. We are truly sorry to hear that.

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WvP understands that the concept of intersectionality is not only applicable to feminism and politics, but also to our cultural and spiritual journeys. In the west, Christianity has colonized spirituality to the point where people’s lives were in mortal danger if their beliefs differed from those of their oppressors. African and Indigenous practitioners risked their lives to preserve their cultures against all odds. Our job now is to respect those who continue this work, and allow them to dictate their own rules regarding their practice.

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This subreddit deeply values the diversity of our subscribers.

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We would like to invite users to share their first hand experiences regarding cultural appropriation, if they wish to do so. (We simply ask you please be mindful not to share information that incites brigading.) We also encourage our white and/or Christian subscribers to take this opportunity to sit back and learn from those generous enough to share their POVs, and to digest the information before deciding to weigh in.

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In order to be “anti-patriarchy”, we must acknowledge the way colonialism and racism have dictated how we interact with the world. We do not know what this planet may have looked like if we did not confuse violent dominance with civility. The only thing we can do now, is give “minority” cultures the space to thrive on their own terms, and protect their freedom to do so as best we can.

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Discussion

[sheisthemoon]

I am very happy to see this.

[summon-nyx]

For me, it is difficult to know from where are my roots. I’m venezuelan and my family is 100% catholic (and a few of them christians), but my paternal grandma do believe in inciense cleanses (idk how to say it in english, sorry for that), she likes rocks and quartz and also do like when I read the Spanish cards for her, she used to listen to horoscopes and that kind of stuff. According to my grandma, my mother also enjoyed the inciense cleanses and liked a lot the quartz and rocks, she also had a cabalistic magic book too (that now is mine since she passed away when I was a baby), my grandpa (the husband of my grandma) practiced venezuelan santería (idk if it’s the same than cuban santería but I will difference them) and he had indigenous roots. An uncle of my was espiritista too.

Knowing that, I don’t feel very sure about which are my roots, my family is a weird mix of cultures, and my mother and grandfather passed away many years ago so that I’m not able to know properly in what did they believed or which kind of practices fitted better with them. My uncle was converted in christian and the rest of my family is pretty catholic, so sometimes I feel very lost.

I have to say that here we don’t learn that much about our aboriginal roots. I remember in school when we learned about indigenous people that weren’t catholic, was mocking of them; they did only let us know that “they believed in the sun, the moon and the rain before the Spanish conquers came to rescue them from being ignorant” and just that. Nor names, culture or rituals. And it is very hard to find information of our mythology or beliefs before the Spanish conquest. All the information includes catholic beliefs.

So that, for me sometimes it is difficult to figure out who I am or who I would be, where do I have to feel attached to, and that kind of stuff. I don’t feel comfortable being catholic nor any abrahamic religion, but I don’t know either where do I belong. I don’t have a specific religion, I trust in many gods and goddesses, from different cultures, but I don’t know if it is okay, I consider myself eclectic, I like to research, learn and practice or believe in what resonates with me (ofc avoiding closed practices) but I don’t know either if that’s okay.

I guess many Latinos witches have the same problem than me. Sometimes when your family is too diverse, you don’t know where do you belong

So that, I really would like to learn from you and your practices and roots, since I really don’t know too much about mines for the reasons I mentioned before

[Individual_Bar7021]

Thank you all for the beautiful lessons and sharing such personal experiences. I truly appreciate this space. It is one of my favorite places on the internet. I love you all

[thecassiecrow]

I want you all to know this brought me to the verge of tears.

I told my husband about this and we are both so warmed and happy and restored at least a modicum of faith in humanity.

I want to say to all the people learning who seem upset that they’ve been doing something harmful without knowing it, please please be gentle with yourself.

I love you all so much. Omg.

[Almond409]

Commenting so I can come back in the morning.

[JustMeMario14580]

God, do I love this community ❤️

[gingerneko]

Thank you for stating this outright and supporting all witches. I wanted to vomit when I read the things going on elsewhere on witchy reddit.

[bugmom]

Just wanted to add my thank you to this caring thread of learning. While I try to take care in my practices I’m sure I’ve been guilty in the past of cultural appropriation – never intentionally but through my own ignorance and lack of effort on my part to learn the origin of things before doing them. I also love the acknowledgment here that we can all achieve our spiritual goals and growth while protecting closed practices from contamination. For me, it falls under the “do no harm” rule. Intentionally violating closed practices or continuing to use them once you know that they are closed, and not bothering to check into new practices before doing the all fall under doing harm. Took me a few years to get here but I’m learning as I go. Where it gets fuzzy for me is when it comes to items – items like images or sculptures or statues or whatever that resonate with me for their beauty and design and I fall in love with them but that might actually be sacred to someone else. When is art simply art to be admired and when does it cross into the sacred. With so much content and products available online it is frequently so hard to tell.

[sojayn]

!RemindMe 12 hours because this will be a nice bedtime balm after a tough day, thanks in advance truly

[Chiraltrash]

Welcome to you all, thank you so much for sharing your stories with us. Here to listen and support.

I love love all yous.

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[removed]

[Nausicaalotus]

I’m saving this thread to read later. Thank you for bringing this forward for people to share their stories.

[FormerChild37]

(hindu by birth here, i speak only for myself)

I’m an atheist. I don’t practice any beliefs. For me, deities and icons are impressions, strong impressions, of different facets of life and consciousness. I don’t worship the Hindu goddess Kali, but her image in my mind incites an energy larger than life. When i feel scared walking alone at night, the simple act of holding her image in my mind gives me teeth, it gives me claws and reckless courage; it makes it impossible for me to cower, even for my safety.

I know her only through her iconography and small snippets of mythology. And yet that’s enough, in fact my body is too small to contain the adrenaline she gives me.

I think there is a lot of panic between appropriation and appreciation/inspiration. If anyone foreign to any Hindu deities gets power from them, even if it is only an image, or a word – I’m happy for them. Often times gods/rituals have power when you give it to them, but sometimes you cannot choose who/what gives you power.

In this subreddit, i have seen so much appreciation and openness. So for all you Western witches out there, and all those who come with good intent: the gates are open, come on in ♥️

[MaybeUrkelGrue]

TLDR: I want to mention and contribute the impact of colonialism and religious indoctrination into the hurdles of identifying spiritual identity.

Being Central American it gets really confusing for me to understand what is a historical practice for the region, what is a strange cultural adoption based on outside factors, and where I fall into a category that allows me to practice what I feel comfortable practicing.

I have extremely conflicting beliefs that can be summarize as teachings from

1. My mom who practices a hodge podge of wicca, catholicism, and random spiritual things she’s picked up over her life from healers, brujas, or soothsayers (can all be found in our country and Latin communities in the US)

2. My paternal grandmother who was Indigenous, yet the most devout catholic I’ve ever met. She retained many of the “old world” traditions, but also taught me about Jesus and what a cool guy he was in her eyes.

3. My paternal grandfather who was a Rosicrucian. (IDK, weird, I know)

4. My father who believes simultaneously in the power of prayer (non Catholic christian), lighting candles to saints, and communing with the spirit world through meditation yet thinks Paganism is the root of all evil…

5. My maternal grandmother who is one of those “rules for thee not for me” kinda gals, but will listen to the church service and do her rosary 3 times a day every day and tell me I was born into Catholicism therefore I *must* be a Catholic. Non negotiable.

So cut to me learning more about myself and finding a belief system that reflects what I perceive if the world and find that there’s so many layers of information from many different points in time relating to different power hirearchies.

There are many things I thought were “normal” practices for my culture, but really it’s just a conglomeration of beliefs through migration pathways.

So what do I do as an American born Central American who has indigenous, German, and Spanish ethic roots, paired with western and indigenous religions?

I never want to co-opt anyone’s traditionally learned practice and I never mean to, but I also don’t know how to separate these bits of knowledge and the information overall. I don’t know who I am anymore because I’m trying to search for profound ways to be my best spiritual self, only to find out that some of these practices exist out of oppression.

I fully support autonomy and privately learned practice. Again, I never want to take from you or yours. I am learning through your explanations though. I am able to understand my own history by listening to yours and your practices. The more I can piece together the influxes of cultural influence and try to get arrive at a reasonable conclusion with regards to my own roots and how I can practice.

So just wanted to remind everyone that sometimes we don’t choose to appropriate, sometimes it just happens because other people in power suck. As a community we really can make a difference through respect and understanding because everyone has a different story, comes from a different background, has different oppression and privilege, but we’re here because we believe in some fundamental things. So please listen an help hold the space for us all to be able to learn and grow.

The world is messy, and many ppl have been forced to move from their ancestral lands, places, or cultures so naturally knowledge and information flows.

So be kind and remember that some of us are just struggling to find what’s ours in a graveyard of fractured memories.

✨ Con paz y amistad. ✨

Edit 1: grammar (probably didn’t fix it all, sorry)

Edit 2:

I want to add that there is a huge difference between intentional appropriation and ignorance. I am not promoting ignorance and instead asking everyone to allow a space for learning, because there’s so much information out and there and it can be hard to peice together. It can hard to let go of something you have been doing for a time, but understanding those roots and how it’s born out of unsavory history helps us all heal because we must acknowledge these transgressions.

I am saddened to see many folks fighting back to retain co-opted practices and using denigrating terms. Please don’t be close minded and think before you defend something you might not understand.

Sometimes the story is not about us and we are there to support someone else’s journey. Let’s mindfully think through this recognizing our roles shift yet our actions stick.

[Violet624]

People who claim Kali as this rage mascot and dark divine feminine really don’t understand what she is within Hinduism and it’s pretty disturbing from a Hindu perspective. I realize you can’t gatekeep the divine, but it is exhausting and hurtful to see Indian culture absconded with, misinterpreted and often monetized (not so much with Kali, but with ‘yoga’ what is described as Tantra in the west which has little to do with actual Tantra, Kundalini and Chakra ‘cleanses’) I’m just putting that out there. There are religious traditions that are full of depth and in cultures that encourage years of study, under teachers that belong to lineages, and when it gets misappropriated by cultures who have colonized the originators of those traditions, it’s a special kind of callousness. So, worship or incorporate Kali in your practice, but consider what you do not know, and the co text you have learned from in the past.