Pagan Coffee Talk
We will discuss topics related to the Pagan community. All views are from a traditionalist's point of view. The conversations are unscripted (no preparations have been made ahead of time). A special thanks to Darkest Era for the use of their songs: Intro- The Morrigan, Exit - Poem to the Gael. Check them out at http://darkestera.net/.
Pagan Coffee Talk
The Color Coding Conundrum: Why Your Magic Isn't Racist
The world of witchcraft has always been full of dualities - light and dark, creation and destruction, life and death. But what happens when modern social perspectives meet older magical terminology? This thought-provoking episode dives deep into the controversial topic of "black magic" versus "white magic" terminology and explores how generational differences shape our understanding of these concepts.
We unpack how younger witches, particularly those under 30, sometimes view traditional magical classifications in ways the original terminology never intended. This fascinating generational divide reveals much about how magical practice evolves alongside cultural awareness. We trace the historical understanding of these terms through craft traditions, where they relate to the natural cycle of light and dark halves of the year rather than racial categories.
We also explore the fundamental truth that magic itself transcends human categorizations - elementals don't recognize race, souls don't have gender, and nature doesn't conform to our neat taxonomies. This episode provides thoughtful insights without easy answers.
How do you approach potentially problematic terminology in your own practice? We'd love to hear your thoughts.
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Speaker 3:Okay, so let's talk about this wonderful little phrase.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so let's talk about black magic okay all right now versus white man, yeah now this we're not getting into a discussion about what, necessarily, I don't know the details of it. We're going to talk about the name the action yeah yeah, so traditionally speaking, black magic and white magic are terms connected to the light right, the light and the dark right.
Speaker 3:It is more of a moral stance than Well, sure. To some extent.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, but if we consider the fact that craft is a religion of the light, Right, right. We have the dark half of the year, we have the light half of the year, and so somewhere along the way Right, there was an association made about the two dynamics or potential halves of magic. It's the coin concept again.
Speaker 3:Right when you have the light, which is life and growth. And where you have the darkness, which is death, destruction, decay, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:Now it has been brought to my attention, lord. Knight that some of our younger witches I'm going to call I'm not going to, I would normally say witchlings. But they're not necessarily that. When I say younger, I just mean, let's say, people under the age of 30. Right, they're not necessarily that. When I say younger, I just mean, let's say, people under the age of 30.
Speaker 2:Right, black bad and that this has a crossover connotation with race and skin color, I have a problem yeah, okay, let me, let me state my problem high magic, low magic we're talking again.
Speaker 3:We're still sort of talking about the same concepts and that's just it.
Speaker 2:So the the, shall we say misunderstanding or the current belief is that, especially when we look at racial tensions in this country and things that we know are not good and that suck, and how definitely people with darker skin have been oppressed, have been treated badly. I mean, we're not denying any of that no, but the idea that black became, or black magic became, a codification for.
Speaker 3:The downgrading of.
Speaker 2:The practices of darker skinned magic practitioners. So we're talking about black people, Caribbean, Afro-Caribbean cultures, voodoo, voodon Right Any of that?
Speaker 3:But even then there is white magic in these practices. They do healings For sure Like crazy, for sure, sure, and that's, and they even have their own, and they'll even call it black magic themselves absolutely, because they have an understanding of what we're talking about here it's.
Speaker 2:It's simply that you know we are so embroiled in racial tensions in this country that I can understand. I really can. I can understand where younger people are like oh, get out of town. Even magic did it right. Even craft did it.
Speaker 3:Where we vilified black or dark well, again, let's, let's, let's look at our, let's look at witchcraft history as we know modern day witchcraft history so if we go back to world war I, what was the biggest debate between most of the occultists back then was even if black people had souls, and all this.
Speaker 2:There was. I mean, look we are. There is so much to this. I mean, come on, there was a time in this country where the scientific belief was that black people couldn't feel pain.
Speaker 3:So again this was all this is all completely nonsense, makes no sense whatsoever.
Speaker 2:It's. The problem is people are trying to overlap two things that don't necessarily overlap. On one hand, yes, you have the treatment of a people and you have the treatment or the. You know the stereotyping based on skin color, and on the other hand, you have a religious, magical system. So put the skin color component aside. White magic and dark magic. You know what is it, so you said it yourself High magic, dark magic. You know what is it, so you said it yourself high magic, low magic right.
Speaker 2:So high magic being ceremonial, being very precise, being very, uh oh, man mathematical and mathematical very correlated.
Speaker 3:There's a lot. There's 50,000 variables to do one step.
Speaker 2:Oh my God so many steps, so many steps, and then low magic, which, yeah, like even we would say low magic is dirty magic. It's more symbolism based, it's a little more loosey goosey.
Speaker 3:It's a little bit more rough around the edges and it's not flowerly, it's not no.
Speaker 2:And then you also have right. Like you said, even within high is white magic right.
Speaker 3:So that's how the old like you know, old asses like us, right right, but at no, at no point did any of us ever sit there and to associate black magic with never skin color, never, ever, never even crossed my pea brain mind right, so ever now, and you're sitting back going, okay, you, you're overdoing, overreaching, overreaching there a little bit now here's the other thing.
Speaker 2:I can definitely understand how people could look at especially most of witchcraft, wicca and go. It largely comes from europe right comes from a lot of white dominant cultures. You know the celts, the norse, okay okay, you know the greeks, the romans, okay, I mean look, but.
Speaker 3:But we could say the same thing about voodoo.
Speaker 2:You could say just about anything. I mean the idea that there isn't. You know, I always get a giggle right. This is always my own personal little thing, right. So it has long been believed that the three wise men who came to see Jesus are known as what now, mages.
Speaker 3:The three magi right um they were brown, just saying I'm not we don't dispute this.
Speaker 2:You know they were middle eastern in origin. I mean, come on, even many people will tell you to call gree Romans or a lot of the Mediterranean. You know, to call them white is somewhat debatable depending on the time in history. So I mean, I mean, we're not. This is very much a phenomenon of the younger generation. I don't think like. I think back to the nineties, you know, and I think back to my early introductions to craft and I go. Did I ever make that association? Not once.
Speaker 3:Well, again I see this. I see them making the same association when we're talking about orcs and all these other mythological creatures.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's a big thing where again we have an overlap. Like somebody was somebody. My daughter was educating me one day on the fact that in a lot of your rpg and role.
Speaker 3:Right, they're now trying to say that oh, it's been going on for a long time. That makes no sense to me but I think that's where.
Speaker 2:That's just it. The younger generation doesn't believe that they're like orcs have been portrayed as sort of like this savage black race or this idea. It's the same way so well, well again.
Speaker 3:The whole concept of an orc to start off with is still the same concept as a werewolf or something it is that man beast, where you can no longer overcome your basic animal instincts.
Speaker 2:But you're thinking too mythologically. When we bring in the modern application, you know, when they're hiring Black actors and Black voice actors to portray the orc race. They've suddenly codified it you know, I'm sorry. You know, and I'm sorry, I've seen too many voice actors and actresses who play parts that have nothing to do with what the world they really are. Again, the, the big picture, the, the generalization here. Look, keep this in mind too. There has been so disney for the longest time. Right, there's the codification of disney villains as gay.
Speaker 3:Yes, right, flamboyant uh, the whole nine yards and it's that. And again it's been. Again it was gay coded through the whole entire thing. But again, when I look at myths and I look at legend, gay code just suddenly falls off to the side right, but the idea is, these are the influences that this new generation of craft has grown up with.
Speaker 2:These are the ideas that have been instilled in them. Right? This concept that like, oh okay, so for a really long time, mainstream media was vilifying gay men right in this way, but I'm also going to sit here as a gay man and looking at all of this stuff going.
Speaker 3:You know what people are being just a little more than fucking oversensitive about this crap. All right, I not. I'm not saying you're wrong.
Speaker 2:I'm not. I'm not saying you're wrong.
Speaker 3:Being called a fag here is supposed to be a bad thing, but if I go over to England I'm going to hear everybody say it.
Speaker 2:I know, because we're talking about a cigarette.
Speaker 3:Well, maybe not anymore.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think it's kind of morphed a bit. But you're right, look we to determine some of these ideas that, were they can look it can create trouble later. The idea is, it's one thing for a next generation witch right now to maybe have the idea right that Black magic was associated with, again, black people, black folk, and that it was a way to kind of again further vilify them, but it's another thing when the you know, this generation starts writing books on craft and maybe they decide to publish that as a statement and the next thing, you know, a couple generations down the line. This is a belief when but again, this is not accurate but again.
Speaker 3:This is where people like me and you need to stand up. This is not accurate. This is not what we're talking about.
Speaker 2:Now, you know. On the other hand, I can say you know, look, I have been to New Orleans plenty of times and been around voodoo magic plenty of times and I can tell you people get scared. Yeah, you know, there is a certain, even if I think people aren't totally aware of it there is a certain reverence for some of the voodoo practices. And well, I mean, I don't know what that is, I don't know. I'd like to think it's respect, but knowing the general populace, it's not. Well, again, there's a difference.
Speaker 3:Let's admit there's a difference between me and you going to a voodoo practice and a general populace. For sure, all right, there's a way we're going to look at it and perceive this as they are not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and some of, but some of that fear, I think, can again morph into the wrong idea. So it's just, it's a little bit of awareness, it's a little bit of practicality. It's also a little bit of following the trail.
Speaker 3:I mean, if we look at things historically, I mean, and again, any aboriginal culture, any early man to inhabit an area they were darker in skin and again, the biggest fear okay, for ancient men and reason why in the world all these ancient characters are this way is the whole entire overcoming your beast nature of man. I mean, I hate to say it, when you come from a violent world, all right, where not only your neighbors but everybody in your house is dominating you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but also we can't discredit the fact that many civilizations that um invaded or inhabited aboriginal lands saw the original inhabitants as what savages. They saw them as less than they. Well, they thought they, we're the civilized ones and you're well again, whatever you are, fine, here's that argument.
Speaker 3:With that, is that not how in the world the celts wound up being called celts by the romans? Because, we were uncivilized more or less.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, we were the barbarians at the time, right, and so were the vikings but but again, if you, if you run it up the flagpole, the origin of you know like a lot of celtic magic, right, we know comes from the picts, and the picts were a darker race. We don't know everything about them because, uh, they've been gone for a really long time, but we do know that, like most aboriginal cultures, they were not white, no, and they were absorbed into the actual yes over time and intermingling and whatever invading all of it.
Speaker 2:Right, but I just I do think this is an important distinction, because if I, I think, if people are, but if you're miscoding your magic, let's put it that way right if you're misclassifying or miscoding your magic. Let's put it that way, Right? If you're misclassifying or miscoding your magic, how is that affecting the magic itself?
Speaker 3:I agree with you, yeah. That could be potentially problematic, I mean, if you were sitting there and you're having to do a black spell and this is going on in the back of your head, how bad is it going to mess it up?
Speaker 2:I mean it's not going to be pretty, is going to mess it up. I mean it's not going to be pretty. I I also think that we then have to. This is where the discussion comes about. Magic has to transcend this. It's beyond this, it's beyond race, it's beyond all of these human concepts. Mean an elemental does Find me an elemental that recognizes race.
Speaker 3:What, well, right, well again it's like our concept of souls. Our concept of souls is that the souls don't really have an actual form. They're just energy Right, so they don't even have genders or bodies or anything of this world.
Speaker 2:Right. So once again I mean look, this is what humans do. We classify, we put everything in a little box, we give it a label. You know it all has to fit neatly. Nature doesn't work that way.
Speaker 3:We do Nature doesn't. We just sort of try to make it sort of fit there. But when we start to embrace a little bit more of that chaos, but I also hate to say this, but this is also why in the world we have such a big freaking fit over mushrooms when things don't fit, it actually grabs our attention a little bit more of course, of course, but I think that you know, again, it's just understanding that not all human concept, I mean again it's, it's the ego at work, right, in my opinion, it's the ego of man to go.
Speaker 2:Everything is based on my experience, everything is based on my perspective. Well, I mean again.
Speaker 3:we've, we've said, I've said it before and I hope you agree with me when I, when I was younger, if I go out and I look for homophobia, I find it. Of course if I go out looking for racism, I'll find, of course, because I wanted to be there.
Speaker 2:There's no doubt about that, and and that's something that again, we're kind of giving people a bit of food for thought here. I hope it's not. This discussion isn't about right or wrong. It's not about I don't. It's not. It's certainly not about race. At the end of the day, it's about how our ideas influence things that are greater than us.
Speaker 3:Right and how we discuss them and how other people pick up on them. Ideas.
Speaker 2:For sure, that's deep. I need more coffee. I do too.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. Join us next week for another episode. Pagan Coffee Talk is brought to you by Life Temple and Seminary.
Speaker 4:Please visit us at lifetempelseminaryorg for more information as well as links to our social media Facebook, discord, twitter, youtube and Reddit empires. And so it is the end of our day. So walk with me till morning breaks. And so it is the end of our day, so walk with me till morning breaks.
