00:04:32.000I had flour, water, newspaper, and an idea.0.54
00:04:36.520I set about creating my vision, a piñata, a dick-and-balls-shaped piñata, a phallic symbol of hegemonic toxic masculinity painted pink, and filled it with candy.
00:04:49.580I went to the Manif with my piñata and my father's boxing gloves and shouted,
00:04:53.600Don't be afraid! When you smash the patriarchy, candy falls out!
00:04:59.600I invited fellow protesters to don the boxing gloves and punch our symbol of toxic masculinity.0.96
00:05:06.000They gleefully punched the patriarchy until its guts spilled out onto the ground.0.95
00:06:17.060Without knowing it, I'd become part of the legacy of WITCH,
00:06:23.240Which? Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell, a group that sprung up from the Women's Liberation Movement in 1968 New York, on Halloween, to hex sexism, capitalism, and racism.
00:06:41.500Heather Booth says that the actions WITCH favored are still very present in the form of flash mobs and modern-day performance protests, she told Vice.
00:06:52.500I'm not saying any of these people think about WITCH as they do this
00:06:57.700But it's the same tradition of hit-and-run visibility that's funny, serious, engaging, memorable
00:07:04.660And has an impact on a broader audience
00:07:07.660And has an impact on people who are involved in it
00:07:11.220Because one of the main things is that the women's movement changed us
00:07:20.780not being so visible, not taking risks, not challenging traditional conventions,
00:07:27.340to taking action, taking risks, and standing up for what we believed in.
00:07:35.620Heather was a member of the Students for a Democratic Society, or SDS, in the late 60s,
00:07:41.540a group of left-leaning university students organizing for civil rights and against the Vietnam War.
00:07:47.840She said, to be an organizer, you have to love people and hate injustice.
00:07:56.080We'll come back to Heather Booth because she has done amazing things, but first I want to underscore that the Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell was a collective.
00:08:07.940Its costumed anonymity meant that no one star served as frontman.
00:08:13.360Its geographical spread made it wild and free, impossible to control.
00:08:20.000Co-founder of WITCH predecessor, the Chicago Women's Liberation Union, Vivian Rothstein, said,
00:08:27.800to feel like you can have the power in a group to do something that needs to be done that you could never do on your own,
00:08:35.420I think it's what I was looking for my whole life.
00:08:37.820WITCH was a child of New York radical women, and as I learned about the founding of this
00:08:45.800collective, rage began to bubble in my guts. The toil and trouble of Elizabethan theater,0.83
00:08:53.040which echoes into the late 60s and reverberates in our 21st century.
00:08:59.260Even amongst the progressive left-wing, women in the SDS found that they weren't being allowed0.89
00:09:03.660any leadership opportunities. Marilyn Webb spoke to other women and discovered, as she put it,
00:09:09.560aha, it's not just me being insecure. So at an anti-war demonstration to protest the election
00:09:17.240of Richard Nixon, Marilyn joined in with other women to declare their part in the movement.
00:09:23.000She got up on the stage, and the crowd of new left men went crazy. Before she was even able
00:09:30.940to speak, they started whistling, catcalling, booing, and according to Ellen Willis and Marilyn1.00
00:09:37.540herself, screaming things like, take her off the stage and fuck her, and fuck her down a dark alley.1.00
00:09:47.060I hate even repeating it. I hate that you are hearing those words now.1.00
00:09:54.940I hate that even in a space founded on building a better, more democratic world,
00:10:04.640Marilyn raised her voice only to be shouted down with threats of rape.
00:10:10.880And so many of us are afraid to use our voices because the reaction we might face
00:10:17.840feels even scarier than the oppression we're protesting.
00:22:11.120women intent on toppling consumer holidays, witches invoking transformative channels of
00:22:16.960healing, women inspired to tear down constructs of hate. And the legacy continues. WITCH groups
00:22:25.120continue to form and disband. The 2016 inauguration of America's 45th president saw a huge spike in
00:22:33.660representation, protesters shrouded in black cloth draped from pointy hats. A Portland chapter
00:22:40.860W-I-T-C-H-P-D-X, officially formed in November 2016 in response to oppression and injustice
00:22:49.840and election, fear, sadness. This is their manifesto. For centuries, the dominant culture0.99
00:22:59.120has persecuted anyone who dares to be different. The gentle healers, the midwives, the queers,
00:23:04.760the loners, the wise elders, the pagans, the foreigners, the wild women. Dissent is threatening1.00
00:23:12.320to the status quo, especially when it's shrouded in unfamiliar customs and the mysterious sacred0.95
00:23:18.100feminine. Those who seek to oppress and suppress us have always called us witches to silence us.
00:23:25.040Now we step out of the shadows, embracing this word and all it stands for. A witch is a fearsome
00:23:31.900creature, inspiring terror and awe, channeling a primal, visceral energy in the name of peace,
00:23:38.740progress, justice, and harmony. A witch is a conduit for transformation. A witch taps into
00:23:45.760the power within and harnesses the power without in service of a better world. A single witch is0.98
00:23:52.240a dangerous outlier. A coven is a force to be reckoned with. An international circle of witches0.98
00:23:58.820is unstoppable. Together, we are WITCHPDX, which is International Troublemaker Conspiracy from
00:24:08.520Hell, Portland. Reviving the spirit and intentions of the 1960s organization of the same name,
00:24:14.940we aim to use our power to fight injustice in all its intersectional forms, and help dismantle the
00:24:21.920white supremacist patriarchal system that perpetrates it. The new generation of WITCH conjures
00:24:28.940our collective rage, joy, grief, strength, determination, and ferocity into a force for
00:24:35.340change. We will not conform. We will not obey. We will not be silent.
00:24:43.220Another WITCH group met in Brooklyn to cast a curse on the Supreme Court's new judge, Brent Kavanaugh.
00:24:54.500In 2018, WITCH Houston, as Witches Interrupting Ted Cruz's Hate, performed a binding spell on Ted Cruz at midnight of the autumn equinox in what appears to be an underground parking garage for Witches Gather, veiled in black.
00:25:12.200In keeping with the viral, open-source nature of WITCH, the Houston chapter posted their ritual in a Google Doc for other witches to re-enact or be inspired by.
00:28:25.020thanks for a fucking wicked episode I'm excited to talk about that I love these women so much1.00
00:28:31.920Yeah, and I also love like how we can, I mean, I probably saw people enacting that like black hat protest, you know, black and white signs without knowing that it was like the legacy of WITCH because I didn't know about them.1.00
00:28:54.220I didn't know that they existed until maybe like when we started doing the podcast something like
00:28:59.820that you know when the research really gets gets deep instead of you know um
00:29:05.380superficial is the wrong word but you know when we really were getting into researching things and
00:29:12.340um so I learned about WITCH and then you know it's one of those things where you just like
00:29:18.640you see it everywhere and you're like I know this I know this and especially because um those of you
00:29:25.060listeners who have been with us since the beginning might remember this story that um I had made this
00:29:30.020mixtape and it was sort of like the idea was that the the witch was a uh like the ultimate symbol of
00:29:37.620intersectional feminism like the witch appears in every culture and you know and I made this
00:29:43.700mixtape and I sent it to Risa and then maybe a few days later Risa was like I have this idea for0.65
00:29:49.020this podcast I was like oh like the mixtape and Risa was like huh like she hadn't even seen the
00:29:52.920email so it's just this moment of like everything coming together in this like weird fantastical
00:29:59.920way that makes perfect sense while also feeling like supernatural so on to another gathering
00:30:08.740which is I saved this piece from Robin Morgan's going too far because I specifically wanted you
00:30:14.980Risa to react to it so I'm going to read it real quick. We in WITCH always meant to do the real
00:30:24.520research to read the anthropological religious and mythographic studies on the subject
00:30:31.020but we never got around to it. We were too busy doing actions. We also meant to have more
00:30:38.020consciousness raising meetings but we were too busy doing actions we meant to write some papers
00:30:44.340of theory and analysis but we were too busy doing actions except that not having raised our own
00:30:51.800consciousness very far out of our combat boots we didn't know what we were doing or why
00:30:58.380i love this i love this idea and it really resonated with me for for our project like
00:31:06.520when we started we didn't know what we were doing or why and we did it anyway so I think
00:31:15.220you know as Robin Morgan says that has its pros and cons right yeah I I love that too it's a kind
00:31:22.700of a loving way to approach it because you have to feel so much respect for prioritizing doing actions
00:31:30.580um and the urgency of that um and the still the urgency that we face you know like we need
00:31:41.860we need our action we need our direct action so profoundly um but I also like that kind of gentle
00:31:50.560gentle reminder about the about those two other pieces right that's really well put it's like
00:31:56.520it's our internal consciousness raising and I would say community building even if it's really
00:32:02.400really small like our internal conversations one by one that help us understand why we're doing
00:32:08.220what we're doing and then the research you know and I think like for us the research ends up being
00:32:14.560these like um really specific spirals really specific dives into usually one woman's life
00:32:50.920So just being as honest about that as we can, you know, where we sit in these confluences of unearned privilege and education and stuff.0.71
00:33:01.380I love, too, that it's like you can prioritize doing action, like in this world of sometimes gotcha-y research, internet research, where it's like you use that word and you don't even fucking know where it came from.
00:33:19.660and you're using this you know building on this culture whatever i think it's great to learn the0.72
00:33:24.460words and to educate each other and do it in whatever fucking tone you want i don't really0.78
00:33:28.700care but i think it's so rad to be like we didn't know but we knew we had to act we didn't know0.83
00:33:37.180everything but we knew we had to act yeah the magic of all of that is super interesting right
00:33:42.940going back to that witch perspective is like you have access to a phenomenal power when you're
00:33:48.540talking about writing and researching amplifying your voice and then amplifying it with created
00:33:53.980symbols um amplifying it with uh protests with gathering people together around symbols and
00:34:01.120symbolic action like that's pretty phenomenal power so you know just uh thinking about where
00:34:10.000to channel that action where to channel that magic and that's the thing you know I think so many
00:34:14.780people think like oh you know we constantly go back to lolly moon who said like you know it's
00:34:21.120about finding your place in the revolution and i think so many people who are who are doing the
00:34:25.740research who are doing the babysitting who are doing those sort of background tasks are are
00:34:31.360there thinking like well i should be on the front lines i should be doing actions i should be doing
00:34:37.040this but then here we have this person who led a bunch of actions and then in hindsight was like
00:34:43.540maybe we should have been doing the research maybe we should have been sitting in smaller groups and
00:34:48.540doing these like conscious raises consciousness raising of of telling our own story in these
00:34:53.300small groups where everybody has a voice and and so on and so forth so I think it's really important
00:34:58.420to note that you know that there there are so many different roles in the revolution and all of us
00:35:06.560are constantly struggling with this notion of opportunity cost I mean we are human beings who
00:35:12.160live in the material world and oftentimes when we make decisions it's not just the choosing one
00:35:17.440thing but also the negating of all of those other possibilities you know the the infinite
00:35:24.160possibilities that get negated when we make a decision so we you can't we can't we can't sit
00:35:31.640here going well my role in the revolution isn't broad enough because we're all contending with
00:35:37.160opportunity cost we all have to make decisions and that means that we can't do everything
00:35:42.300despite what capitalism would would have us believe that we need to you know have it all
00:35:48.420and do it all and constantly be grinding and these people who you know work 80 hours a day
00:35:54.260and never sleep or somehow like lauded as heroes but like not in our world not in our world you
00:36:02.200know it's okay to like if you know what feels right to you and again maybe it's cooking for
00:36:09.960your neighbors and maybe it is like storming the bastille you know like but all of all of these
00:36:18.320are important pieces and and those of you who are leaning into domesticity just know that
00:36:24.780robin morgan on the front line of action was like maybe we should have also done this right
00:36:30.600Yeah, I mean, there's definitely something magic that happens just in being a safe space for people to bring their kids, being a safe space for conversations about sexuality, being, you know, in places and communities where you can't really talk about witchcraft to, you know, be that person who just talks about the moon or, you know, like there, there are these countless ways that we make cracks in the pavement of the built world.
00:37:00.600that we that we send our roots through it that we don't destroy it but we reclaim it like like trees
00:37:08.320you know taking taking on parts of things around us to make something better more healing I love
00:37:16.260the way the the w-i-t-c-h which is right I love the like humor um I think that that like refusing0.95
00:37:27.840to be made too serious is part of a witch's power yes the bizarre and the holy yeah
00:37:37.360yeah and yeah the put on and the and the serious yeah i think having a sense of humor is is hella
00:37:45.360witchy because like the world is absurd and part of like being being a witch and like lifting that
00:37:52.120veil is to like be able to laugh at the absurdity of literally all things right that's like not
00:38:00.260buying into it all too much it is a put on all of this is both real worlding and a put on you know
00:38:06.800like i think we feel that a lot where we live uh maybe more so than i've felt it in other places
00:38:13.860in this sense that like if we left this house be for like five years it would almost disappear
00:38:21.940like the woods want to eat this house so badly you know the woods are just any second now they're
00:38:30.140they're gonna they're gonna take it over we've you know we we like eke out of balance every year
00:38:35.600um but they they eat the garden the you know the the tree roots you can't and why would you like
00:38:43.960keep a space from more trees in the way the world is today but trying to give more and more and more
00:38:49.660of our land to trees and you really feel like this is a living presence that we're in communication
00:38:57.540with here and we are very small yes communication you know I'll tell you my favorite thing about
00:39:04.460the woods um is that there's no bullshit there's no baloney in the woods the the the woods doesn't0.84
00:39:12.580want to eat your house because it's out to get you because it you know because you did something0.98
00:39:17.840wrong it's just happening it's just all happening there's no pretense it's just all happening yeah
00:39:24.880I think I mean there's definitely species that dissimulate so I I like to highlight when
00:39:30.240when we say like what differentiates us I'm I'm constantly wondering if there is anything beside0.86
00:39:35.840our own delusion about how fucking different we are you know and we'll get into that more this
00:39:41.460season too but we're sure with dawn harroway yeah but i mean and uh and carol yeah oh right
00:39:48.420of course yeah creative lives of animals can't wait but again maybe the delusion is is again
00:39:55.380what separates i'm using scare quotes when i when i say separate again
00:40:00.140but i i mean i i do want to touch on to this notion of like um because they all
00:40:11.400i'm talking about w-i-t-c-h here because they all dress the same in these pointy hats and you know
00:40:18.180homemade cloaks and so on that they both stood out and blended into each other you know again
00:40:28.620a lot of you who are listening aren't in a safe place to like kick down grandma's door and yell
00:40:33.400that you're a witch and and we get that and that's fine but um this this is part of that amazing
00:40:40.300thing like cloaking in a group so again you're like standing out but you're also blending in
00:40:47.400um it wouldn't have been safe for a lot of these women and people but specifically this was like a
00:40:54.620very women-centered movement now we're in the 21st century and we're sort of moving past this like
00:41:02.420gender essentialist language but their their language of gender essentialism was reactionary
00:41:07.860to the gender essentialism that they were facing again I think it's so important that we look at
00:41:15.260the real lives of these people who got into these women's liberation movements who you know were
00:41:20.860told like you go to college so you can find a husband you have a couple kids and then that's1.00
00:41:28.540it that's your life you have no choices um women in Canada I believe couldn't have credit cards in
00:41:35.120their own names until the 1970s the 1970s you know so like Odrisa and I are saying like we learn0.62
00:41:43.920things and then we're like oh you know in five years probably will be problematic too because
00:41:48.920we're learning and we're growing and we're learning we're growing we're learning we're growing
00:41:53.600um but it I think it's so important once again to like to look at the real history of what these
00:42:01.980people were up against and to look at the tools that they used to fight it you know now we're a
00:42:08.200little bit safer maybe um to say i'm a witch you know you're you're not gonna get burned in the
00:42:14.580town square maybe you are especially in many places in the world but you know where we live
00:42:21.220you're probably not gonna get burned in the town square but you might lose you know access to your
00:42:28.160family members, you might lose the respect of your community. So when we can sort of,
00:42:36.640and think of this however you like, you know, literally or symbolically, if we can put on our
00:42:41.780pointy hats and our black cloaks and sort of blend in together as like a, as like an amorphous
00:42:48.060blob of witches that is, is, is a thing in and of itself. I like to keep that in my consciousness,
00:42:55.240you know Risa you talk all the time about hiding in plain sight and I think this is a great example
00:43:00.980of that like I'm here you can see me but you don't know what what's under the veil yeah I I I love
00:43:09.580that so much too I I love thinking about ways I mean you're certainly correct that there are still
00:43:16.220in the world and in North America a great many places where it's not safe to be different
00:43:25.180period you know and which which stands for the protection of that protection of all that's
00:43:31.400marginalized and and stand in community with that there are certainly certainly places and i mean
00:43:36.060with the kind of christian fascism that's become popular white supremacist christian fascism has
00:43:43.020become popular in the united states it's certainly there are many places and in many families
00:43:49.020where you could not say that word um and where your possibilities your your potential the world
00:43:56.260that you see in front of you as a woman are incredibly different and gendered um from other
00:44:02.700people so i do like to imagine like where are the spaces where you could allow yourself even a moment
00:44:10.840of putting on that powerful freedom you know like could you do it just for halloween
00:44:18.680could you just be all black all black everything for Halloween you know could you could you like
00:44:26.880walk down the streets where the kids are walking with a tall pointy hat and a black cloak and a
00:44:31.760black veil and just feel the the transgressive power within the safety container of how of the
00:44:39.560commercialization of Samhain like is there a space where you could even if it's just that home in
00:44:45.340your room like is there a space where you could put that on I think we talk about that in the
00:44:49.980ritual or Samhain in the book is like call in call in a future for yourself and what that looks like
00:44:59.860call in a version of yourself that gives you power and then sit with a mirror play
00:45:07.180see what you want to put on just for this one dark liminal time what can you call in what can
00:45:16.260you put on and how does it allow you to carry a power with you when you are hiding in plain sight
00:45:21.800i am so excited about this notion i mean you know like mirrors are are super magical we call them
00:45:28.200portals and like scrying tools but i hadn't really thought about this notion of using a mirror to not
00:45:35.720feel alone like if you are alone in your witch costume stand in front of a mirror and then you
00:45:43.620are no longer alone you are with two witches and all you need is two to make a coven I think
00:45:48.500totally oh my gosh so I think about I think I got this from Veronica Varlow but I I do this
00:45:54.100sometimes standing in the mirror I noticed that I often don't make direct eye contact with myself
00:45:59.920when I look at the mirror I I'm looking at you know does you know that I angle my head a certain
00:46:05.640way I'm doing like lots of like sort of cutesy voguing gestures for those who can't see me but
00:46:10.540um and and I realized you know standing lighting a candle looking directly in my own eyes
00:46:20.120and then saying my full name I am full name and then daughter of and kin to and then call
00:46:30.540in whoever I feel kinship to um I feel way less alone I call in the kin that I'm requiring to
00:46:43.500support me which i got from our salute um vita she's like you know some of our problematic0.98
00:46:50.560ancestors they make good on shit they fucked up earlier by coming through for us now yes yes we've0.97
00:47:00.420talked to a couple people about this because again like maybe someday we will be those problematic1.00
00:47:05.660ancestors you know we know better and we do better but um someone once told us that they
00:47:12.620they want they want to make right that or that you can help them yeah to make right that instead
00:47:22.700of saying oh you know my problematic grandfather did this and that you can sit down with grandpa
00:47:26.700and say you know I forgive you you didn't know any better so you you know that's what you you
00:47:32.860were just trying to get by like we all are um maybe you made mistakes maybe you made bad choices
00:47:38.260and honestly like recently I've been doing that for myself too you know Amy like maybe you've
00:47:46.000made some mistakes and maybe you've made some bad choices but like I forgive you it's been hugely
00:47:52.400powerful for me I I feel that so much and and I think that you know that other piece um from
00:48:02.800Veronica of Arlo's grandmother that I love from that traditional bohemian magic. And we've heard
00:48:09.180other witches talk about this in different ways before, but is that on the other side, on the
00:48:13.860spirit side, on the flip side of that, you know, Mobius strip that is time and in witch philosophy
00:48:22.460and I think um contemporary physics um all of time exists right so you're always you're always
00:48:32.920in community you're you can always be in communication with 16 year old you and 80
00:48:40.380year old you like the most powerful ancestor you call out to is yourself because as the
00:48:47.000charge of the goddess goes I've been with thee from the beginning and I'm with thee now you know
00:48:51.680like truly there is that version of you that's in your genetic makeup that exists in the mobius
00:48:58.820strip of time and it's okay to be like four-year-old risa i need you 16 year old risa1.00
00:49:05.920thank you for your fearlessness i forgive you for all the dumb shit you said0.97
00:49:10.040yeah and i mean we can even do this like it helps me to um think of like doing things ahead of time0.95
00:49:18.620is doing future me a favor you know oh I'll make breakfast tonight and then it's ready for future
00:49:24.280me and so in that way like I I'm being my own ancestor I am this like spirit of self from the
00:49:31.740past that is like influencing how tomorrow is gonna go for me oh one of my favorite little
00:49:37.660spells for for future reset and you can do it this is a good time of year to do it is if you're
00:49:43.780putting away summer jackets if you're putting away a season season stuff you can put like a
00:49:50.260little five bucks a little 20 bucks special rock stick it in your pockets for future future you
00:49:59.600it's such a treasure when you're going through them and you're pulling out your favorite
00:50:03.380summer jacket or whatever that you're like oh pastries i'm gonna buy myself an ice cream cone
00:50:10.480right how about we do things simply for the delight of our future selves
00:50:15.740yeah and i do again i want to underscore like there are a million different roles in the
00:50:25.460revolution and you know the one that resonates with you is the one that you should be focused on
00:50:30.180something that runs through my head a lot is a quote that is half gil scott heron and half
00:50:36.280Risa Dickens which is the revolution will not be televised but it will be babysat I think about
00:50:43.640that a lot but before we go I want to I want to um take this from wild witches don't get the blues
00:50:50.660again like I got into a lot of like that sort of 70s women's liberation witch stuff and again
00:50:57.820some of the gender essentialism is is a bit off-putting for those of us who live in the
00:51:02.840contemporary world but like we we understand why that why they were conceived and produced in this
00:51:08.980way and it it was reactionary to the the gender essentialism that they had been facing it's a it's
00:51:14.780a pride thing but i do want to leave with this on the subject of naming wild witches don't get the
00:51:23.140blues by fiona morgan one of the most effective paths to breaking resistance is to name yourself
00:51:32.300a witch. In the early days of feminist witchcraft, it was suggested to repeat to yourself three
00:51:38.480times, I am a witch. By naming our reality, we create it. So again, whether you're a witch or
00:51:50.300a WITCH, you have a role in the revolution. It might not be on the front line, but that doesn't0.93
00:51:55.940make it any less spectacular as far as we're concerned. It might not have the pomp and
00:52:01.240circumstance of you know being at a protest march but it's equally as important
00:52:08.740cares to acting uh for the sake of our future delight and liberation for all beings and0.97
00:52:17.220defining the word witch for ourselves blessed fucking me happy season seven welcome home1.00