Part Two

Wake up in the morning, scroll through social media. Grab some food, scroll through social media. Procrastinate on your work, scroll through social media.

Looking at our social media accounts is something all of us spend way too much time doing, whether you’re willing to admit it or not.

Now think about what you see when you scroll through your Instagram feed. Is it pictures of people you went to high school flaunting their new engagement rings? Or highly edited photos of celebrities and models? How about ingredients for spells and Wiccan tips?

Probably not the latter. However, there is a huge community of witches all over social media that anyone can follow to learn about witchcraft and Wicca. Lidia P. (@wiccantips) and Taylor Gallagher (@crystaldreamwalker19) are two women at the forefront of what exactly it means to be a modern witch.

How it all began

Not only do both women run successful Instagram accounts centering on witchcraft, they both had similar starting points— mothers that practiced witchcraft.

Gallagher’s mother was a pagan, rather than Wiccan, and encouraged her daughters to partake in the belief system that they most identified with.

“She didn’t raise my sisters and me with witchcraft as a focus, she wanted us to find what worked best for each of us— but in one way or another we’ve all found our way into the craft,” said Gallagher.

She now identifies as a pagan and a forest witch in her Instagram bio.

“I follow mostly earth magic— relying on being outside in nature, trees and plants to not only center and recharge my energy, but to draw energy, aka power, for spell work. Casting a spell, in my opinion, is the channeling of energy with a purpose,” said Gallagher.

Lidia, who didn’t disclose her last name for privacy reasons, said her mother taught her the basics of green witchcraft and energy work.

“When I was a teenager I became more interested in [witchcraft] and started researching and learning by myself,” said Lidia.

Magic and (social and traditional) media

Taylor Gallagher

Gallagher’s social media account contains everything from artwork, to quotes, to horoscopes. According to her, astrology actually crosses over with witchcraft.

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“Tracking the movements of the planets and how those movements translates into specific energies can help to make spell work that much more effective. For example, when the moon is new, you can use those new energies to begin a new project, or when the moon is full you can use that energy to help complete a project,” she said.

In terms of the actual community of witches on social media, she said there are a lot of ways for people to find information and learn new things online, but it can be difficult to figure out who’s legitimate and who’s just in it for the “aesthetic.”

The “aesthetic” is now a problem in traditional media as well, since a lot of movies and television shows seem to feature witchcraft as a trend rather than a belief system and way of life.

“We’re no longer just portrayed [in the media] as women lashing out at a man that’s wronged us, which is so refreshing. But on the flip side, it’s now portrayed as the hip thing to do or try. That’s a form of appropriation, and I don’t appreciate that sort of thing,” said Gallagher.

In terms of how the outside world perceives her, she tries to keep her “witch persona” and her “everyday persona” separate online so she doesn’t have to deal with uneducated judgements.

“I purposefully have my “everyday persona” and my “witch persona” separate online because I don’t want to deal with the nonsense. In my real life, I have a few friends and most of my family who know that I’m a witch and they’re supportive. But I see “faith” as very personal, so I don’t broadcast what I’m doing,” she said.

Lidia P.

Lidia’s social media account focuses on quick spell recipes and rituals, living up to its Instagram handle @wiccantips. She began her page to help people who are just becoming acquainted with witchcraft on their journeys.

“I’ve seen so many beginner witches discouraged by the amount of information that is available, and many others confused about the limits of witchcraft,” she said. “I think that knowledge should be free.”

She herself practices the spells she posts to her page. While most people have visions of magic wands and brightly colored potions when they think of spells, the way they actually work is a bit more practical.

According to Lidia, there are two types of spells: those that work because of the properties in their ingredients, and those that work because of your inner energy.

“If you have sore throat and you drink a potion with thyme, lemon juice and honey you will feel better because thyme has antibacterial and antispasmodic properties. Lemon has a lot of vitamin C as well as antibacterial properties, and honey helps boost your immune system and calms the pain,” she said of the ingredient-driven spells.

Spells that work because of your inner energy have to do with your intent.

“That is to pour strong emotions and energy into the spell, usually through meditation. It’s like a way to ask the universe for a determinate objective or to help destiny flow in a [certain] way,” she said.

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In terms of traditional media, Lidia believes that although witches are starting to be portrayed more realistically on screen, the “bad witch” stereotype is still very much alive. This can lead to people who have never met a witch in real life getting the wrong idea of what they’re really like. If you’ve only ever seen witches in movies like “Hocus Pocus” and “The Wizard of Oz,” you’re most likely not going to have the best impression of them.

“People don’t understand this path,” Lidia said on how others sometimes judge her. “However I always try to explain them the reality of witchcraft. Some of them are willing to understand, others aren’t.”

Modern magic in the real world

A lot of people still associate witchcraft with either eccentric movie characters or old folklore. Not too many people know how beautiful and intricate witchcraft really is.

“I think part of the mind set surrounding witches and witchcraft is that we’re still old women living in shacks in the woods, kidnapping children or sacrificing animals or cursing men,” said Gallagher.

“That’s just not what it is anymore— even though the point of witchcraft, and why it’s called a craft, is because there isn’t one size to fit everyone.”

Interestingly enough, Gallagher broke witchcraft down into two belief systems: paganism (what she practices) and Wicca (what Joan, the witch and psychic from the video, practices).

“I consider Wicca to be more of the religious following— like any other religion— and being pagan is more like following a lifestyle, like being a yogi. And like being a yogi, modern day witches take bits and pieces of different Crafts/paths/witches/sources and blend them together to create something that works for them. That may include some traditional practices such as growing your own herbs and plants for spell work, or modern practices such as keeping a digital grimoire,” she said.

Overall, no matter how one describes witchcraft, the common theme throughout it is love and acceptance of everyone and everything around you.

“Doing any harm, like curses and hexes, or messing with other people’s free will through magic, like binding and love spells, goes strongly against my beliefs,” said Lidia.

“Many people think that magic can achieve things that are impossible. Magic makes subtle changes.”

There seems to be a lot of confusion over Wicca, paganism, Satanism and witchcraft because of the media making villains out witches and not portraying them properly. If you don’t take the time to look into each of these religions and belief systems, and their rich histories, you’ll never know what they actually stand for.

“I think the weirdest rumor [about witches] is that we worship the devil. What’s so funny about that is that it assumes we worship the “bad guy” from a different religion. That’s just illogical; we have our own gods and goddesses that we follow. The people who worship the devil are called Satanists, and while some of them are witches, that doesn’t mean all witches are Satanists or that all witches worship Satan,” said Gallagher.

 

Atlanta Hawks rookie swaps jerseys with seasoned Miami Heat guard, cementing the end of his first year as a good one and foreshadowing what his career could become.

The late Steve Golin on set of “The Revenant,” one of many legendary films the award-winning producer helped create. Even though he’ll no longer be able to make anymore films, the work he’s left behind will be remembered fondly by fans and colleagues alike.

The murder of Andrew Freund is not something that will soon be forgotten by Crystal Lake residents; typified by the child-like memorial and people praying outside the five-year-old’s home.

Triple threat and “Dancing with the Stars” alumnus, Derek Hough, will make his mark on Albany by bringing his talents to the Palace Theater on his new tour.

History may be repeating itself with former Vice President, Joe Biden, possibly back in the White House in 2020. Democrats will be excited to learn of Biden’s third run for the presidency.

The Daily Mirror, a British tabloid, recently published a story about North Korea test firing a new missile that’s carrying a powerful warhead.

The combination of this photo and text makes it look like Kim Jong-un is watching the test fires, when in reality this photograph is from years earlier.

The photo they chose to pair with the article looked too familiar, so I reverse image searched it on Google and found out it’s been used in articles since 2013.

The photo was actually used in a Daily Mirror article from March of 2013. The original article was about North Korea putting on a “military show of strength,” or a live artillery drill, for Kim Jong-un. The image is also credited as belonging to AFP/Getty Images.

I found this photo in other articles about this event as well, including the Independent article I attached screen grabs of below.

Other news outlets covering the North Korean test fires used the same photo of Kim Jong-un speaking into a microphone, which I put a screen grab of below.

Although the Daily Mirror has since updated their article, the photo remains unchanged.

Hal Boedeker is the TV Guy. From television to movies to radio, he covers it all for the Florida based newspaper the Orlando Sentinel. Trained in copywriting, he first worked as an entertainment editor at the Miami Herald.

“I was an entertainment editor in 1990 at The Miami Herald when the chance to be a TV critic opened up. I seized that job, and it was the best possible move for me. I’ve been at the Sentinel since 1995,” said Boedeker.

He created his brand more so as a necessity to keep doing the job that he loves. Since fewer people were reading the print edition of the newspaper, he was told he needed to start a blog— and so the TV Guy was born.

“The blog is about sharing what interests me along with the latest headlines. The blog is a range of things: news, opinion, reviews, local updates, TV, movie, books, even some news coverage commentary. I write more for the blog than I ever wrote for the print edition,” said Boedeker.

As far as social media goes, he focuses mainly on Facebook and Twitter. An automatic tweet goes out whenever he posts something new. He’s also found that posting his articles to Facebook has helped boost traffic to his blog.

“You have to make connections anyway you can,” Boedeker said about utilizing social media.

As shown in the image above, Boedeker, @tvguyhal on Twitter, has 3.7 thousand followers and 18.8 thousand tweets. He’s also verified.

His Twitter isn’t very active in terms of followers. Although he posts new content multiple times a day to the platform, five retweets, which the post above got, was one of his higher numbers.

This may have to do with Facebook being more geared toward his audience. It could also be because his tweets go out automatically, he doesn’t put as much time into the platform.

Boedeker’s Facebook has around the same amount of followers, with 3.8 thousand friends. However, the latest posts available to view were from 2014.

His Facebook does have more engagement, though, with people asking for his feedback on television shows. He answers his viewers with his opinion.

His video the Orlando Sentinel Facebook page posted for the 2015 Emmys did well, garnering 920 views.

Besides the TV Guy blog, Boedeker covers a few other entertainment based topics for the Orlando Sentinel.

“I cover TV mainly, but also movies, radio, TV and movie production, books (especially Florida authors and themes) and whatever I’m asked to do. Our staff is far smaller, so the workload is greater,” said Boedeker.

Brittany Breuer is a normal 18-year-old college freshman. She dorms at Ithaca College, is on track to become a speech pathologist, and happens to run her own makeup page on Instagram.

The world of social media is a competitive one, with thousands of Gen Z-ers vying to be noticed everyday. While some do make it big, and are subsequently shot into Internet fame, it takes a lot of work to gain a following, create content, and stay relevant.

Brittany is a self-taught makeup artist, as she proudly states in her Instagram bio. She learned most of what she knows from other influencers on YouTube and Instagram. Her looks are created either in her family home on Long Island, or in her Ithaca dorm room (whether her roommates are home or not).

One could easily call Brittany a self-starter— she purchases all of the makeup she owns (a few of her favorite items are shown here, but her whole collection fills two large storage containers) with her own money. She works two jobs; one as a page at her local library, and one in park services at Splish Splash waterpark. The money she earns from these jobs goes to her growing makeup collection, which she uses to run her account.

Her looks are all created from products anyone can get their hands on, making them easy for her followers to recreate. The Morphe x Jaclyn Hill palette she used for this look retails at only $15. She’s been able to create both natural, no makeup-makeup looks and vibrant, eye-catching transformations with affordable makeup brands.

Here, you can see Brittany went for a more subtle look made of warm browns and pinks. She uses brush techniques she learned from other makeup influencers to perfect her look, like adding a little bit of highlighter under her eyebrow. Her Instagram page is filled with either iPhone-filmed videos on how she created her look, or pictures of the final product with the makeup used written in the caption.

For this look, she decided to go with a photograph of the finished product. She takes and edits her pictures on her iPhone before posting them to Instagram. If she’s doing a video, she’ll edit that with her iPhone as well, in the iMovie app. Her Instagram account, @britt_beautyy, now has 172 followers, despite being started just seven months ago.

Joan wakes up every morning and goes to work at the local school. She lives in a modest, two-story house and is the proud owner of two dogs.

Maybe she reminds you of your next door neighbor, your mom, or even yourself.

If you walk through her house, you’ll see the usual stuff; a rocking chair covered in a blanket, a half-filled bookshelf, and even a fire place. Oh, and of course, her grimoire and deck of tarot cards.

Joan is a modern witch. She’s a practicing Wiccan, psychic, and overall good person.

While the media may lead you to believe witches are all green-colored women with hooked noses who fly around on broomsticks, reality holds a stark difference. Both Wicca and Satanism are modern religions that people practice, not just plot lines in horror movies. Everything from religion, the infamous Salem Witch Trials, folklore, and, of course, the media play a role in the rich history behind the modern witch. To fully understand what modern magic is, we first need to take a look back at what made us so scared of witchcraft in the first place.

The History: Hysteria Begins

The first recorded story of witchcraft is actually in the bible. In fact, when asked if Wicca and Catholicism are intertwined, Joan said, “very much, yeah. Don’t let a priest hear that!”

Although, the witch hunting hysteria didn’t really take hold until the mid-1400s in Europe, around 200 years before the Salem Witch Trials even took place.

Malleus Maleficarum, or the Hammer of Witches, was written in 1486 by two German Dominicans. The book detailed how to identify, hunt and interrogate witches, as well as cemented witchcraft as heresy. 80,000 people were put to death under the suspicion of being a witch from 1500 to 1660.

In 1481, even the pope got involved. Two German Monks complained that the church wasn’t being diligent enough with their prosecutions of witches after encountering witchcraft themselves. In light of this news, Pope Innocent VIII issued a papal bull, making it clear that the pursuit of witches was, in fact, the pursuit of heretics.

Because heretics opposed the Catholic faith, the church put a lot of effort into witch hunts. Not only were witches considered dangerous for believing in superstition, but they were also accused of casting harmful spells and working with the Devil.

The reality of modern Wicca, however, is that it’s more focused on being in harmony with nature and what’s around you, than opposing Catholicism.

“It’s open to what’s around us instead of what’s above us. Religions have a tendency to do that. Wiccan doesn’t, Wiccan has what’s going on in your energy,” said Joan.

She went on to say that most religions are ritualistic in some way. “So you’ve been to a [Catholic] mass once in your life, is that the biggest ritual you’ve ever seen? It’s very ritualistic.”

The History: Salem Witch Trials

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t associate the word “witch” with the Salem Witch Trials. The trials are so infamous that there are even tourist attractions, including museums and live reenactments, advertised on travel websites. The history behind Salem, however, is a lot grimmer than the family-friendly attractions that are now available.

In 1692, one of the best-known witch hunts began in Salem, Massachusetts. It all began when eleven-year-old Abigail Williams and nine-year-old Betty Parris began to have unexplained fits of screaming, uncontrollable outbursts, and violent contortions. William Griggs, the local doctor, actually diagnosed the girls with bewitchment— essentially saying their odd behavior was due to a spell being cast on them. Shortly after, other young girls in the village began to complain of similar symptoms.

The girls originally accused three women of bewitching them; Parris’ Caribbean slave, Tituba, homeless beggar Sarah Good, and the poor, elderly Sarah Osborn. Good and Osborn both denied their guilt, while Tituba confessed and acted as an informant. She claimed there were other witches in the community, which lead to several more women being accused, including Good’s four-year-old daughter.

The trials got so big that they began to overwhelm the court system at the time, forcing the special Court of Oyer (to hear) and Terminer (to decide) to be established. The court convicted Bridget Bishop first. Bishop was hung on what would later be known as Gallows Hill (which is now a museum).

Over the course of the trials, more than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft, or the Devil’s magic, and 20 were executed. The colony eventually admitted their mistakes and attempted to compensate the victim’s families.

The “bewitchment” the young girls suffered has since been theorized to be caused by a fungus found in rye, wheat, and other cereals, called ergot. It’s now known to cause delusions, vomiting, and muscle spasms.

Ever hear the term “witch hunt?” You can thank this historical event for coining the phrase.

Modern Magic: Wicca

“Modern Witches” are typically associated with Wicca.

Wicca, or Witchcraft, is a religion that was formed in 20th century England by Gerald Gardener. It draws upon Paganism for its theological structure. Traditional Wicca has no central authority figure; it’s duo-theistic, meaning both a god and a goddess are worshipped. The Moon Goddess and the Horned God are their earliest rendition of their two gods.

Many Wiccans believe in, and practice, magic. Although, “harm none” is an important law they follow.

“I harm none, that’s how I live my life,” said Joan.

Wiccans strive to avoid evil and live peaceful and tolerant lives with nature and humanity.

“I practice only good. I practice only white magic, I don’t practice black magic because I wouldn’t want to have anything come back to me,” said Joan about her witchcraft.

“I associate with other witches as well, and so we practice, and we do rituals, and I do spells. Really what it is, is a focusing of your energy, it’s a focusing of your affirmations, it’s a focusing of your intelligence and it’s put into ritual form.”

“It’s just a way of life. It’s not anything different than anybody else.”

Modern Magic: Satanism

There’s no reason to panic about the Satanic. In fact, most modern Satanists practice at the non-theistic Temple of Satan, which was established in 2013.

The Satanic Temple states its mission is “to encourage benevolence and empathy among all people, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense and justice, and be directed by the human conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by the individual will.”

They even follow Seven Tenets, including “every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.”

The fact of the matter is, modern witchcraft isn’t, and probably never was, as scary as history made it seem. The core beliefs of both Wicca and Satanism are to respect others and to live in harmony; the opposite of what most people automatically assume about them. Remember that the next time you watch “The Craft.”

https://prezi.com/view/XdOAxKgEXEAyPUyxVOXs/