Photo illustration by Diana Tourjee obviously
The last time I wrote about a male witch, it was the fall of 2015 and a famous, self-proclaimed warlock was telling me how he's the "Donald Trump of witchcraft," because he has "powerful opinions about things. Not necessarily politically, but I say what I feel about whatever." That interview seems weirdly prophetic today; Donald Trump is now…president? And when he's not denying any collusion with Russia, he's making wild claims that he is the target of the "greatest" political "witch hunt" in history.A sassy article in the National Review has declared "Trump is the Witch," in the sense that he is being targeted by hysterical people who are supposedly delusional about the negative reality of his political power. Other cultural commentators have torn Trump apart for his use of the term "witch hunt," and are using this opportunity to remind the American public that thousands of people (women!) were executed because townspeople across Europe and in the Americas believed that they were witches."His misogyny and racism knows no bounds," says Jack, another male witch. "With the hundreds of thousands of women murdered during the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem trials; [Trump's] investigation can't even be remotely compared." Jack made pains to explain that male witches were often spared persecution because the witch hunting was so fixated on women."As an African American male witch this offends me two fold," Jack continues. Firstly, he explains that, "the biggest witch hunt in history is the transatlantic slave trade; our practices informed all the European practices so any white American witch in history had work that was a hodgepodge of African and indigenous American practices." Yet once in America, Jack says that people who were enslaved were forbidden from practicing their craft. "Luckily those that hid didn't hide too long and things like the Haitian revolution took place with Voudou as the starting gun.
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I know enough about magick to know that the term "warlock" is offensive. So I wouldn't use that term to describe male witches. The term doesn't actually mean male witches, it means any witch that's been locked out of their coven for betrayal. It literally means traitor, according to John P. Hunter III, who wrote of the warlock in his book, Showdown with Ideology. So, if the allegations of Trump's collusion with Russia turn out to be true, then the term warlock could be ironically appropriate for him. But he's simply not a witch."It's amusing, because Trump is pretty much the antithesis of what a witch is," says Damon, a male witch. "A witch is aligned with the natural world, and the balance of the ecosystem. A witch is a liminal figure who sides with all genders, sexualities, and identities."Read more: Warlock Claims Innocence in Legal Battle Against Nemesis Witch
It reminds me of how little he knows about the struggles of my sisters.
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"As I fight to reclaim my ancestors practices from the actual biggest witch hunt, I can't help but feel the audacity that this white man who has his magic done for him could even come up with such a statement," Jack says. Additionally, this underscores Trump's failure to understand the way in which women have been persecuted and forgotten throughout history. "No male will receive the same intense persecution women receive," Jack says. "It reminds me of how little he knows about the struggles of my sisters."Jack and Damon argue it is simply antithetical for Trump to relate his experience to that of the witch. "A witch knows no borders," Damon tells me, gesturing toward the southern dissection of North America and Trump's obsessive attempts to restrict immigration."Trump literally embodies everything we oppose," Damon issues, with a warning: "Trump is the witch hunter, and the witches are coming to get him."