Time to clear up a few things!
Heavy rain and a cold are giving me an autumn mood in July. My last post was a week ago and the math I did there was kind of underappreciated, while I suddenly had to debate with a regular reader about why I‘m really not a spiritual person and also why I am so very sure about that!
Given the circumstances, I think it‘s time to write a post about why I do this witching thing.
What does witching mean to me? If I am not into anything spiritual, not remotely interested in astrology and tarot readings – why even build up this mystic atmosphere around myself? Why write about spells, and demons, and boys that were mean? Why look at the stars, or take care of my garden?
There are several possible responses to this of relevance to me and my writing.
One is that of a person in a rare moment of crisis. Another one is that of a writer having gathered strength to try something new. There is also the answer of someone studying the history of science, and that of a person working in museum education and chasing curiosities.
A moment of crisis
My first interest in witching was an impulse. I had recently read the novel „The Asylum for Wayward Victorian girls“ by Emilie Autumn and was impressed by translating her own struggles into a tale from the past. When I had trouble adjusting to the new pandemic daily life, I wanted to do the same, and use this moment of crisis to create something.
Witches came to mind, because I had loved them in stories when I was a child. I made it my new daily task to trace them back in European history and more and more discovered the connection between the belief in witches and the crisis of the past, such as plagues and wars. Well, I had had a suspicion before, since I was just finishing my first degree as a teacher (for science, society and German). But still, it was full of inspirational discoveries.
New motivation to write
Me researching everything related to witches, witch hunst and the early modern era was never meant as a way to become spiritual. I never wanted to learn how to do tarot readings nor did I ever have the slightest interest in astrology. I wanted to understand this cultural narrative of the witch. How it started, how it developed, what it still means today. Thinking about this became a refuge, when I could not handle my new reality anymore.
I remember sitting in my tiny one-room-apartment one lockdown night in May 2020 and feeling like I tricked the world, because I spent these lonely month writing imaginary discussions and was having with the witch I summoned. My early blog posts are full of these dialogues we had, and I used my witch as a projection for whatever I needed. She became a way of being in touch with myself when I felt like I could not bare it.
And in one of those nights the idea of the witching novel arrived.
Write her story as one that could have easily happened a few hundred years ago!
Tell the world about her!
That was my sudden idea.
And it felt huge. It felt too huge to handle.
I had been writing all my life. I had made the goal to become a novelist when I was 8 years old. In my late teens, I wrote for theater stages in Hamburg, finished my first novel at the age of 20, but stepped away from that goal out of general frustration towards life.
And now I had this idea!
Researching every detail about a time period, capturing emotions I had in mind – and putting it all into one of those historical novels me, my mother, and even my grandmother had always liked to read.
I began to blog to grasp all of this. The pandemic, the new ideas, the huge task I had found for myself.
It was truly a truly magical experience.
Exploring history
It lead me into a truly fascinating era of history. A lot of rapid changes, severe disasters, and new discoveries shape the life in Europe between the 15th and the 18th century. The modern society shaped by capitalism began to form, old kingdoms fell apart, and our modern understanding of science emerged. Witches are often associated with all of this. People to remember them as educated women who could read or even were doctors of some kind. The stereotype sees them as the forgotten scientists, and that is very far from the truth. Neither the metaphysical statements found in „Malleus Maleficarum“ nor the documented legal cases against so-called witches ever took that specific form.
The witching stigma is mostly of another kind. Illnes plays an important part, as well as infertility. Those things happening to a woman, or even in close proximity to her, could look suspicious. Another thing directly related to waves of witch trials are crop failure, unexpected weather, or disease. Anything threatening the physical integrity of humans can be seen as the witching stigma. This important meaning of the body and the fear of anything wrong with it can also be found in the treatment of witches. Once under suspicion, a body was searched for moles, or even places were the stitch of a needle did not cause pain or bleeding. When looking for witches, bodies were a thing for worry about and be scared of.
Being confronted with these complex beliefs that actually killed a lot of innocent people while at the same time people such as Galilei, Kopernicus and Newton brought our understanding of the universe to a new level showed me the extremes the early modern world had to deal with. We like to see medieval times as dark and primitive and the Renaissance as bright and modern, and I think that‘s worth reflecting on.
In this case, the witching research did not just make me write my novel. It also gave me a new interest to pursuit: Understanding the context in which our knowledge, science, and big developmental stages are taken.
When I started this blog, I was going to be a teacher for science as one of my subjects. Now I work in different museums with a natural history focus and am studying for another master‘s degree to understand the history of science much better.
This is what witching provided for me. It really was worth it, don‘t you think?
My way of witching
My magic, my way of witching is that of creating and writing. It is the joy of expressing myself. For this, I like to explore chapters of the past that I’m interested in because they tell something about the presence. I am actually a very rational person. I like to explore things to understand how they work. Writing witty and ironic flash fiction about the oddest metaphysical descriptions found in “Malleus Maleficarum”, visiting historical places, or even experimenting with poetry are all different aspect of this kind of magic, and it’s the only kind I need. Actually, I would go as far as stating that believing in anymore magic would take away the spark from creating, exploring and feeling what life truly has to offer.
Mistress witch writes 