Many years ago I came across this Witches Manifesto while reading “Drawing Down The Moon” for the first time. It was such an exciting thing to read that everafter, I have never missed an opportunity to pass this on when I can.
Far from being the definitive Witches Manifesto (it speaks to radical feminists as if they were practising Witches) this passage seems the “grooviest” and most inspirational mantra of all the 20th Century Women’s Liberation Movement literature. I love that it was written in 1968, the year of my birth.
So here it is, all credit given to the original authors, the feminists officially known as the Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell or WITCH.
“WITCH is an all-woman Everything. It’s theater, revolution, magic, terror, joy, garlic flowers, spells. It’s an awareness that witches and gypsies were the original guerrillas and resistance fighters against oppression…Witches were the first Friendly Heads and Dealers, the first birth-control practitioners and abortionists, the first alchemists…WITCH lives and laughs in every woman. She is the free part of each of us, beneath the shy smiles, the acquiescence to absurd male domination…if you are a woman and dare to look within yourself, you are a witch…you are free and beautiful…Whatever is repressive, solely male-oriented, greedy, puritanical, authoritarian-those are your targets…you are pledged to free our brothers from oppression and stereotyped sexual roles as well as ourselves. You are a witch by saying aloud, “I am a Witch,” three times, and thinking about that. You are a witch by being female, untamed, angry, joyous, and immortal.”
YES!!!
As empowering as that is, and as much as I agree with most of it, I feel compelled to note the following distinctions.
I am not a member of WITCH and I’ve never known anyone who was. I wish I did.
It takes a lot more than saying “I am a Witch” three times to become a true initiate to the Craft. But as a succinct manifesto, this rocks. If only it were required reading and discussion for all young men and women as they enter puberty. I certainly would never discourage anyone who felt the need to call herself a Witch from declaring it – as long as she knew that saying it and having a spiritual calling to the Craft are two entirely different lifestyles. A Witch who has answered a spiritual “calling” to the Old Religion knows that she has to earn her title.
I’ll be adding other Witch/Pagan manifestos here so you can compare and contrast them all. In the meantime, I highly recommend picking up your own copy of Margot Adler’s “Drawing Down The Moon”. If you were confused by all the different factions of Witches/Pagans/Craft practitioners in the United States (as I still am), this book is essential reading.
