“WITCHCRAFT – and the embrace of “magical” practices, like reading tarot cards – has recently experienced a resurgence of sorts among young, creative, politically engaged women,” reads The Guardian.

This is largely reflected in niche corners of US pop culture: 2013’s American Horror Story: Coven, in which witchcraft stood in for girl power, was the most popular American Horror Story season ever. A popular Tumblr blog, Charmcore, purports to be run by three witch sisters; it gives sarcastic “magical” advice and praise of the female celebrities it deems to be “obvious witches”. On the more serious side, teen sensation Rookie magazine has published tarot tutorials along with more standard-issue feminist and fashion advice, and Autostraddle, a popular left-leaning blog for young queer women, has an in-house tarot columnist.

A commenter writes:

I have a couple of friends in Cornwall who are Wiccans. They daily make a libation to the Earth and thank the ground for the crops and the sky for the rain etc. They believe that whatever you wish or do to others can come back to you thrice and that you can do as you wish as long as you do not harm others. They married by literally jumping over the broomstick. They have three girls who were the most polite children I ever knew and all went to UNI and got degrees and now are married with their children and all follow this belief. None of them ever tried to recruit me or impose their belief because they consider that you will be guided to it if it is for you. When I was in difficult times they were of so much help in practical ways. To me they seem to have better standards of morality and ethics than the organised religious.

As long as one is nice, one can believe anything, even the most patently false propositions about reality.

Leaving aside the question of whether anyone cares about “popular left-leaning blog[s] for young queer women?”, I have a simpler explanation for the rise of witchcraft. Feminism is demonic.

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