Before Donald Trump’s decisive election victory last week, Reddit witches on r/WitchesVsPatriarchy were trading notes on what spells to cast to prevent him from getting re-elected.
Some members were advising against it, claiming he has a form of protection surrounding him:
My guess is that warlocks are not casting protection spells for Trump; rather, something else is happening:
Prayer versus magick1—the raging skeptics will dismiss this claim as “woo,” while meta-intellectuals may see it as a useful metaphor, but those with traditional or post-skeptical views will believe it is real. In any case, whether your metaphysics allow openness to such a claim, there are people out there who do believe this perspective. Their numbers are increasing, and these believers are using their spiritual practice of choice to promote their political candidate of choice.
Perspectives shape reality, and the view that the culture war is a spiritual war is now the dominant one, or will be very soon, with the Culture War Left employing woke occultism and snot scientism2, while the Culture War Right relies on based Christianity and edgelord vitalism3. Within each culture war pole, there are fundamental tensions—witches and skeptics don’t always get along, nor do Christians and Nietzscheans—but for now, they have a common enemy in the opposing pole.
This claim echoes one made by druid John Michael Greer after Trump was first elected: magick, understood as the art of causing changes in reality in accordance with will, would become a prominent and explicit feature in politics. In documenting the “Kek Wars”4 of 2016, where memes became sigils, Greer observed how Pepe the Frog and chaos magick merged in support of Trump’s election. This meme magick from the Culture War Right sparked the #MagicResistance backlash from the Culture War Left, with Wiccans casting spells against Trump and his administration.
As an illustration, a coven of New York witches attempted to place a hex on Brett Kavanaugh after his appointment to the Supreme Court, which was countered by a San Jose exorcist, Father Gary Thomas, who held a Mass to protect Kavanaugh on the day the hex was taking place5. If Trump was accidentally meme’d into office through magick in 2016, as Greer claims, prayer now seems to be the spiritual practice increasingly used by the Culture War Right leading up to his reelection6.
Magick is defined as aligning reality to one’s will, and prayer as aligning one’s will to God. Trump’s victory was undeniably historic, and after surviving years of cancellation, lawfare, and literally dodging a bullet, many of his supporters who believe in God—and who see themselves in dialogue with Him through prayer—believe their prayers were answered, and something has lifted, as if a spell was broken.
Prayer may have trumped magick for this election, but the spiritual war has not ended; it has simply become conscious again.
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The term “magick” was coined by occultist Aleister Crowley to refer to the practice of using one's will to influence reality, which he contrasted with stage "magic," the creation of illusions for entertainment purposes. While many do not use the "k" to refer to the former, I like using it, as its awkward spelling evokes a mildly unsettling feeling when I see it.
“Snot,” coined by
on , refers to the communication style used by cultural elites on the Culture War Left, characterized by a subtext of intellectual and moral superiority, with snarky disdain toward the Culture War Right. “Scientism” is the treatment of science as a religion. I consider “snot scientism” part of the spiritual war, as it serves as an anti-spirituality, aggressively denying any reality beyond the material through status-belittling and dogmatic fidelity to “trusting the science.”Bronze Age Pervert, Sol Brah, Gotye Wokeuplikethis Hyperborea, etc.
See “New York Witches Place Hex on Brett Kavanaugh” from the BBC.
This relates to
’s claim about the return of a “macho Christianity”—a masculine form of prayer that ultimately serves as a response to evil and heightened awareness of the demonic. See The Entity Pill series for a transperspectival take on responding to the demonic.