Eurocentric Standards & Racist Criticisms of Magic
Alright yall. So I know itâs not just me, weâve all seen a lot of back and forth on our dashes lately about a number of different topics such as...
What âcountsâ as real witchcraft, spells, magick, or magic vs. âwishingâ or beginner nonsense?
How do we personally define multidimensional terms like âreligion,â âintent,â and âwitchcraftâ?
How do these and other terms pertain to what we do as witches, chaotes, and/or magic(k) practitioners?
Who can use which terms and in what ways such as âsigilsâ and âspellsâ for certain activities?
Thereâs a lot of conflicting answers to those questions in our community. Itâs important because the answers can have very big implications for how we view and treat each other. People are entitled to their own opinions and personal beliefs about definitions, techniques, and methodology, but I want to address the specifically racist, Eurocentric bullshit that underlies some of what Iâve seen in discussions about these topics.
Telling us that you look down on our forms of traditional and indigenous magic (or donât even consider it to be magic at all) just because our methodologies and our practices donât conform to Eurocentric standards is racist.
It is racist to try to judge the magic methodology and practices of non-Eurocentric magic traditions by Eurocentric standards. And if youâre not part of and well studied in a magic tradition, Iâm not sure what right you have to judge it even by its own standards either. In other words...
If you arenât an initiated bruja, donât presume to judge the methodology or technique quality of an initiated bruja.
If you arenât a rootworker or hoodoo doctor, donât be comparing what we do to chaos magick or any other tradition in terms of standards or effectiveness.
These are just concrete examples, but this goes for any non-Eurocentric magic tradition and honestly, probably also for any magic tradition in general because
if you donât practice it and you arenât well versed in it, how do you expect to make a reasonable critique of it?
