by Valerie Love
I am a Christian Witch.
Now before you get your panties in a bunch, hear me out.
Christians who hate the idea of a Christian Witch say, in deep ignorance and fear, that Witches worship the devil, and that witchcraft is inherently diametrically opposed to Christianity.
I’ll address this in a moment…
Witches who hate the idea purport you can’t be a witch and simultaneously in league with our torturers and murderers from times not so long ago, and by no means forgotten.
I say there’s a different take on it that maybe neither side is considering… after all, a spiritual tradition is fluid, not rigid.
My mother was a witch, who’s now on the other side of the veil. When she was here, she walked the planet as a devoted Jehovah’s Witness for almost 50 years (talk about faithful, I can’t think of anything I’ve stuck with for that long…)
Of course, we didn’t know mom was a witch when she was in form here in the third dimension. But time has clearly revealed her witchy ways…
She could make anything out of anything, and I do mean anything out of anything.
When she wanted a pair of boots to match her outfit, and couldn’t find exactly what she was looking for in any store, she declared she was going to make a pair. All four of us (her kids) laughed like crazy, until a few hours later when she emerged from her sewing room with a new pair of boots on to match her newly sewn outfit.
She had the last laugh. Again.
Mom did more witchy things than I can shake the proverbial broomstick at, and of course, it never dawned on us, at least consciously, that a fundamentalist Christian would be a witch.
Truth be told, I don’t know if mom ever consciously embraced it herself.
Neverless, she was ever brewing up, sewing up, creating something out of nothing, giving people the evil eye (especially us kids when we were out of order, which doubled as a handy stunning spell) and generally enchanting the men in her life. All while managing to look quite gorgeous.
Not to mention her favorite color was purple.
Mom deciding to redo the entire living room in purple, including finding the infamous purple sofa and loveseat, still stands in the annals of history in our family as one of the biggest WTF?!?!? she ever pulled off.
Ah yes, mom was very witchy and very wonderful. She literally oozed magick; her witch’s shimmer was visceral.
And she was a devout Christian.
So while her demeanor, bearing, habits, behaviors and uncanny ways of knowing things that no one knew all bespoke witch, her words and dedication to the Witness religion was apparent.
She had chosen sides. The Christian won in public. But the Witch won under the surface.
Now on to my grandmother, another witchy wonder who spelled the entire family with her version of a desert she mysteriously called ‘yum-yum’ (which no one could make quite like her and none of us had more than a vague idea of what she was putting in it).
We only knew it had an unhuman grip on us. Whenever grandma was making ‘yum-yum’ an irresistible urge came over us all to bolt for the kitchen and drool before the oven door.
She would sit in the kitchen grinning like a Cheshire cat, like she had a big fat secret, always with that one witchy eyebrow up.
As for enchanting the men in her world, well that was par for the freakin’ course.
Mom and grandma had the 10 traits of witches down pat, and they weren’t even trying.
Meanwhile, my grandmother on my father’s side had a garden in the backyard from which she made green concoctions whenever any of us turned up ill.
What she was boiling up in that big kettle on the stove was anybody’s guess.
The stuff worked like a charm (because it was).
Trust me, I never saw it coming.
While the women in my life were doing hands down witchy stuff on the regular, they were steadfastly proclaiming their allegiance to Jesus Christ.
Go figure.
These witches found the most clever disguise: Christianity.
Who would accuse one, or even suspect one, of being a witch if you’re the biggest Christian going?
All this caused me to come to the realization I shared recently on my YouTube channel: you don’t have to throw Jesus away just because you remember you ain’t a muggle.
Jesus, or as I prefer to refer to him, Yeshua was, in my humble estimation and opinion (not that anybody’s asking for it, but what the hay) one of the most magnificent, elegant, masterful witches who ever walked the planet.
Yep, he was a Bad Witch!
That’s why I love him. I may have learned more about the magickal arts and sciences from studying his always cryptic messages (not as the Bible is taught to Christians, but as a metaphysical tome of allegory, myth, legend and prose that I get to deeply dissect within the cavern of my own soul).
My particular faves are the Gnostic Gospels, the Bible with Apocrypha and all the Kabbalistic writings I can put my paws on.
I find the legends of Enoch, Moses, Ezekiel, Daniel and others in the Bible to be among the greatest magickal feats I could study and aspire to.
I could say more here about the long line of witches I am from going back to the slave trade, and the diaspora that I am progeny of.
Indeed, my personal brand of witchcraft is an integration of elements from Yoruba, HooDoo Rootwork, traditional witchcraft, Kabbalah and all the traditions of the world that have touched my spirit in my global travels and deserve a place in my practice.
Every witch must walk her/his own path.
I am heir to a rich legacy of Christians and Witches, and I am unwilling to relinquish either.
Indeed what makes my magick powerful for me is, in a word, integration of all that I AM, including all I’ve received from the ancestors.
So there you have it, a Christian Witch, descended from many witches who sat inside churches, or Kingdom Halls, or at the ‘rock’ in the middle of the night on the plantation, or other places and spaces of worship, content to be their witchy selves, and probably who cast spells on the way to their holy houses, while completely at peace with Christ, the Bible and their interpretation of the whole affair.
Yes. I’m a Christian Witch. Like my mama, and her mama before her.
About the Author:
featured image source