People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
i don't believe in witchcraft but I'm not bold enough to challenge people to hex me. not because it might work, but because i might just be unlucky enough that something completely irrelevant would happen to me and that would forever convince them they were right and i was wrong and i would never live that down.
it might even happen while I'm uploading the update to say that everything's fine. something would fall on my head or some shit, I can't take that risk.
I'm loosely pagan on a spiritual level and I vibe a lot with druidism and many of the things that witches do, but as much as I enjoy the culture, I never fail to cringe over the collective hubris of self-proclaimed witches. It's always the edgiest 30-45 year old women who wear House of 1000 Corpses t-shirts and extreme amounts of eye shadow, who post "Proud Bitch" memes on social media and exude an undeserved air of confidence because they believe so deeply their spells are real.
While I admit that Wicca is quite beautiful and largely misunderstood, the things most witches/hexers are practicing only date back a few decades. They're not speaking the ancient magicks or communing with old gods. I can't speak much on the divine feminine because I'm not informed enough on that subject, but for the other half of their belief system they have taken the rather ambiguous depiction of Cernunnos and turned him into a sexy, big-dicked goat man, and have fabricated their own lore to explain the workings of something that is in reality unfathomably old and lost to man, with no surviving origin story and little to no oral tradition.
We can certainly make some educated guesses, but the bulk of that information died with the druids.
Wicca and paganism in general has always had those cornball types. Back in the 70s and 80s, every tool who renamed themselves after a cool animal and weather condition/celestial body claimed to have a grandparent who secretly initiated them into an ancient unbroken lineage of witches. In the 90s and 00s, it was appropriation gone wild with white ladies from Iowa claiming they had a lineage in closed religious communities like conjure and Vodou. Now it's fucking deluded 20-somethings on TikTok who "godspouse" or work with Naruto characters.
It's not important that it only dates back a few decades. At one point, all supernatural belief systems only dated back a few decades, and look how they proliferate.
People represent it origins as far older. And by doing so, claim a more authentic mode of being in the world.
It's just like any other system of belief. You can sit around praying for something, or you can cast more effective hexes, such as "hit this guy with my car," or "actually give him poison."
Lets hope all these internet witches don't learn the power of ~~direct action~~ real magic.
You spot fake witches because they believe in magic instead of Magick. Being a witch is a spiritual practice, if curses actually worked the world would be very different (and way, way more fucked than it currently is)
I like the "headology," or the idea that what people believe is what is real.
“So people see you coming in the hat and the cloak and they know you’re a witch and that’s why your magic works?” said Esk.
“That’s right,” said Granny. “It’s called headology.” She tapped her silver hair, which was drawn into a tight bun that could crack rocks.
“But it’s not real!” Esk protested. “That’s not magic, it’s—it’s—”
“Listen,” said Granny, “If you give someone a bottle of red jollop for their wind it may work, right, but if you want it to work for sure then you let their mind make it work for them. Tell ’em it’s moonbeams bottled in fairy wine or something. Mumble over it a bit. It’s the same with cursing.”
-- Equal Rites, Terry Pratchett
When I read Mortimer, in which he reveals the afterlife is just what people believe it to be, I tried to convince myself I would be reborn as an eternal goddess just in case that’s actually how it works 😆
Hey, you never know!
I feel like if the supernatural exists as portrayed by popular culture, then societies around the globe must have had a coordinated and lasting effort to snuff it out at every turn and would have to meticulously continue those efforts even today.
We could debate that the crusades, Salem witch trials, burning of the library in Alexandria, etc are all proof of this effort, but how could anyone really prove it? And would knowing it is real and it is just not accessible make things any better?
Honestly, as much as the idea of controlling forces not inherently responsive to my own command is intriguing. Realistically it would add a whole new level of messed up to our already botched attempt at existence as a species.
I prefer to think of magic as simply the science we haven’t yet discovered.
What do you think someone from a few centuries ago would say about the technology we have today?
Nothing fails like prayer. Or magic, which is just a different flavor of prayer and vice versa.
Reminder that there used to be a $1,000,000 prize available for anyone who could display any sort of supernatural powers that remained unclaimed for 20 years. The challenge rules required that both parties agree upon the test setup, and several people actually tried to claim it and all failed. It astounds me that anyone still believes in this nonsense and that it seems to be becoming even more popular to believe in literal magic and other supernatural idiocy.
When I used to be New Age I believed that not believing in magic gave you a resistance to it because Quantum...
Accepting the truth that magic ain't real was tough
As a kid I asked a friend's dad who was a chemist if magic was real and he replied "Do you think anyone would go into years of schooling for engineering if a shortcut existed?"
Science is magic if you don't know how it works so you can always re-establish your beliefs
Like a reverse roko's bassilisk. Interesting. I mean that way around is at least comforting/ gives main character energy.
I looked for the video and came across a reddit thread about it. Here are two really funny comments:
I think its rather silly to say the least especially since curses require a certain amount of anger and hatred that im sure next to nobody feels to this person.
Oh yeah that's why it didn't work
Magic requires willpower and intention to use properly. I doubt any of these randos on the internet actually possessed the genuine desire or emotional investment to actually curse a random guy on the internet who had heretofore never interacted with them
Anyone who actually understood this likely didnt rise to the bait.
No true witch!
I wouldn't ever do this because as soon as anything went wrong in my life I'd never be able to shake the question that it was super natural. I'm extremely skeptical and don't believe in any supernatural things, but I have a fear of developing superstitions. Also when I get really stressed about my life and feel like it is particularly unfair I start to feel like there is some sort of external source of my problems and it's malevolent. So, doing something like this would be a recipe for problems for me lol.
I have a fear of developing superstitions
Ngl that sounds like a good horror-comedy