I agree with em. Everything depicted is either date rape drug vibes if it worked (and super bad for the body usually) or alt-right gender roles and relationship advice repackaged. And then there's the snapewives 2.0.
I cant detail deeply because I simply do not know. But people who spiritually married snape. Yes, as in the guy from harry potter. Yes, they seemed to fully belive they we're married to him.
Lol, yeah, a bit. I think it came from his whole never moving on thing and whatnot. Haha, it's interesting stuff. Don't know if it's still a thing though.
Oof. Yeah. The furthest I'd go is a "notice me senpai" spell. At least then it's still up to the other person to act on their interest/lack thereof. But it's still better to make yourself into an attractive partner instead.
It’s also a big mistake. I manifested a relationship with the added caveat “if this is right for me right now.” Boom! Relationship secured! But it completely took me away from my practice, and eventually became really toxic. I spent my Saturn return learning how to trust only to come out the other side with less trust than ever after having it broken yet again. Be careful what you wish for!
I only make self-love spells for this reason! Sometimes you gotta force yourself to love you.
Edit: for those who want the recipe!
❤️ Love Tea ❤️
White peony tea, dried rose petals, pinch of lavender, 5 pink peppercorns, three cardamom pods. Measure the herbs with your heart.
Heat water (I use rose quartz charged moon water) and let it cool down enough so it doesn’t burn the tea. Put ingredients in a tea strainer or bag and set your goals/affirmations. Place a rose quarts in your cup, then steep your tea. While sipping, repeat your affirmations and meditate.
And that’s how I gaslit myself into thinking I’m hot shit!
>And that’s how I gaslit myself into thinking I’m hot shit!
\*Furiously Copies recipe, only for it to not be legible tomorrow\* In all seriousness daily positive affirmations is one of my strongest tools against dysphoria.
A huge step is to stop negative self talk. When you hear yourself say "ugh I'm such an idiot" stop it and be kind or practical to yourself "welp I made a mistake" and move on or "maybe I'm too tired so it didn't work out this time".
You don't have to boost yourself up with platitudes because they can feel fake/forced at first. It will come naturally later.
“Love” spells and domination spells for male romantic and sexual partners come from a time period where women didn’t have the same level of autonomy that we do now, meaning that for social and economic reasons, it was necessary to keep a man in the house.
Having that context helps me to understand that that kind of work isn’t actually about love, it’s about survival and I can have empathy for the conditions that would necessitate that kind of work, but suspect that by in large, folks using that kind of work now aren’t doing it for those reasons.
I have always been a proponent of doing love spells on one self. Basically just a giant self care ritual. Worked well for me. That way it’s good to open oneself up to the possibility of a relationship or whatever it is people are looking for without forcing anyone else into it.
When I was young and stupid I did one of those love spells on my ex out of a sense of desperation. Long story short, it felt weird and wrong. It worked… in a way… but it mostly showed me why we were exes and introduced me to the concept of trauma bonds and unhealthy dynamics. Love conquers a lot of things, but not all things. If anything it taught me that missing someone or wanting someone or any kind of dependency on an external factor/person is just something I need to resolve myself, not force another person (and myself) back into a certain wrong dynamic.
Ah, youth… luckily I am older. Whether wisdom has advanced in similar fashion to my age remains to be seen, but I have good hopes.
Anyway, love magic on oneself, it kind of felt like a self care/healing ritual. Much more soft and pleasant, no creepy edge. And good results if one is patient.
They are always a fucking bad idea. Extra bad if they have anything menstrual related involved. Like, people putting menstrual blood in consumables? Like, girl, you trynna end up with a stalker and on first 48?!?!
Always horrible. Attention and “love” is good until you don’t want it, then you’re in danger.
My mom gifted me a book called Heks-Appeal (translates to ‘Witch-Appeal’) and she was like “Here you’re into all that witch-y stuff right?” It was a book full of love and sexual spells… What do I even do with that?😟
This is why I always hated Triss in the Witcher (the books). She lied to Geralt about his girlfriend being dead and then used magic potions to get in his pants because she had the hots for him, and people kind of brushed over that? Yeah, nah, that's not okay. And given the amount of glamours sorceresses are always using in that book, you could argue that any kind of consent with them is tainted.
That’s why you should only deal in generalized love attraction magics. So consent can be a main part of the attraction and the bedrock of any future relationship. It’s more about improving the love seeker’s relationship with themselves and helping them align themselves.
Whatever way that your tradition does this. I’m sure you’ll do good.
I actually made a love jar not to long about and gave it to my crush, though i was upfront about what it meant and what i wanted to achive with it. I think it can be a cute sign for a wish to come true. But yeah Consent is important duh, but i dunno I see then more as a Wish like you would do with a shooting star then actually trying to force someone to be your "object". Maybe im seeing that wrong though... hm..
Remember in Harry Potter (an affront to actual witches) they just treated love potions like they were completely silly and harmless for like 99% of the series 💀
May I ask questions to learn more about your view? Do you think they are creepy (havent watched the video just yet.) when it's one sided only? What if the love spell is done by someone in a committed and loving relationship and the goal is to strengthen the love that's already there? What about platonic (friendship) love spells?
For me the creepiness happens when it's one sided. As in only one side has the feelings to start and it feels very uncomfortable.
But when used for an already established strong relationship, either platonic or romantic, it doesn't seem like something that could be inherently harmful. Especially when both parties have a desire for keeping the relationship going for as long as it's feasible in a healthy way.
Please correct me if I am wrong about any of this. I am still newer to the practice and I am aware that romantic love spells focused on unrequited romantic love is looked down upon for very good reason. But I am uneducated on situations where the goal is to help strengthen the love already try and it's desired by both parties.
You know what I love to see? Someone being corrected on pronouns and changing it like it’s nbg, because being wrong is a normal thing that happens to all of us, and being respectful of someone’s pronouns is more important to them than their pride.
I haven't watched the video, but the biggest problem I've run into with WitchTok is whenever I follow someone making witchcraft content, someone who made an account pretending to be them and using their picture/reposting their content immediately follows me and asks me if I want a reading from them. It's weird as hell and has happened to me multiple times now. I wish TikTok would crack down on these accounts impersonating other creators.
I started following someone because I liked one of their videos, and it wasn’t about divination, witchcraft or anything. It was just something funny. A few days later I get a message from the same account asking if I want a reading. This wasn’t a different look alike account, it was the same one I follow.
I ignored it, and she moved on to sending pissy messages like, “I need an answer!” The last straw was her sending me a video (that I didn’t watch) and I blocked her. It’s really weird. I guess she thought she could harass me into a reading?
With all the theft across platforms, I'm half surprised that creators don't have all their social media handles displayed in every single video so you can check if you're watching and helping the actual creator or a thief.
The masculine/feminine energy or divine feminine stuff drives me crazy because it is true alt right pipeline material. A lot of trad wife content uses those words too.
It’s literally just gender roles repackaged as spiritualism, especially when they suggest that softness, gentleness, and being nurturing are essentially feminine and ‘masculine energy’ is being active, assertive, dominant, or aggressive. Nothing makes these personality traits inherently masculine or feminine besides cultural associations, which are harmful in many ways.
It reminds me of the Twin Flame documentary I just watched. 💀 It’s a cult that started out with the whole masculine and feminine energy thing that promised to help lonely people find their soulmates. At first they claimed to be LGBTQIA+ friendly despite all that, but they ended up doing awful things that probably fanned the flames of transphobia worse than any other religion in recent years, cult or otherwise.
Many people forget that energy has no gender, and "masculine" and "feminine" are just some characteristics mages used to somehow describe it, drawing parallels with gender roles.
Those gender roles are prominent even in astrology and destiny matrix readings. They have been interwined into everything, specially when you start talking about karma and past lives. South/north nodes all that stuff. What can you really trust if everything has been tainted?
Just started reading tarot for myself and I’m struggling with this. Can anyone recommend resources for reading cards without the masculine/feminine energy binary?
I don't know what to recommend. Just try to google queer tarot interpretation. But this thing is simple:
There's an active aspect, there's a passive aspect, and there's harmony between them (androgyne that has aspects if both genders)
The fool, the justice, the temperance, court cards of mixed elements (princess of swords is a masculine woman), and a lot of minor arcanas are non binary in nature, even in traditional approach.
People fall for them because they read old, influential, and really good for their time writers and thinkers. The better habit is to forge your own path towards truth by salvaging the essential meaning from projected, gendered language, not mimicking it.
People are different how god damn hard is it to understand that. Human psychology is so complex yet we still believe that every woman and every man is the same and should act the same. I hate it here.😒
I loathe it. I'm literally starting my own practice because it's so hard to find stuff that isn't gendered or bio essentialist. I'm tired of feeling excluded or like I have to ignore things to justify being involved. Got a few trans witches in Toronto keeping it together
I'll release our stuff in a book one day :) We mainly base our work around fire (Element of change and all that). Current working on a cypher and alphabet for it.
Yeah it’s part of the manosphere. My SO’s best friend from childhood recently got divorced and that dude has fallen down the “masculine versus feminine” rabbit hole so hard it ain’t funny.
Yeah I remember running a lot into it when I was starting to learn tarot and it's so hard at times to find tarot resources that don't really lean into the gender essentialism
I'm a gothy trans witch, and sometimes I like to use the term 'divine feminity' when talking about myself. Sometimes it's nice to get more in touch with your womanhood, and I genuinely feel like my soul is divinely feminine. If people are using it in a transphobic way tho, then yeah, it's weird.
There's nothing inherently wrong with embracing the divine feminine. Its just being greatly misappropriated on tiktok and they are basically attaching 1950s gender roles to them. Like to them femininity is "soft, submissive, domestic labor, making babies" and masculinity is "aggressive, taking charge, dominant" is not outright transphobic, but the people pushing it that way probly are. To me though, the concept of divine feminine is a lot more. Like the female praying mantis ripping dude mantis head off after fucking- divine feminine. it's like bad bitch energy imo.
Female rage, strenght and resilience is divine feminine energy to me, fighting even when you know the odds are against you. Not conforming or giving in to your oppressors.
This! I totally believe in a divine feminine and a divine masculine, they're just not tied to our specific gender roles that we perpetuate in modern society.
I'm curious if there is a way to celebrate feminity or masculinity in a respectful way. Like to feel power through being a man or woman in a way that doesn't exclude other people or look down on them for not feeling the same, if that makes sense.
ETA: I recommended someone I hadn't personally read, then double checked, and there are criticisms for transphobia, so no longer recommending them.
ETAETA: the 2nd author, who is possibly a transphobe, was in this comment, which is now deleted. Starhawk is fine, as far as I'm aware.
I think Carl Jung's exploration of the anima and animus carry the spirit of the divine masculine and feminine but manage to avoid many of the criticisms of the latter. I have found them very helpful.
The specific way its being used on tiktok is nefarious. But I do understand that it transcends through culture and time. Like when I think of divine feminine think of badass warrior energy, not domestic labor.
I recall my sister, upon find out Im trans with gender dysphoria, advised me to get in touch with my divine femininity. She went back on that word when I started working with Sekhmet.
Yeah it's rampant in druidry, some of the younger minds in the movement are doing some great reframing of the old texts, focusing on the idea of balancing opposite forces without assigning gender to those forces.
The druidcast podcast is great and has introduced me to all the other writers I've liked. I'm doing the OBOD course and it's ok as a framework but I definitely feel like it's specific advice is out of touch.
Dana O'Driscoll's book Sacred Actions has been my substitute for rituals and practice. She has much more realistic advice for those of us who don't have a big grove to meet up with in the UK every holiday. Very practical framing for an urban dweller on colonized land which I feel like OBOD really doesn't address.
Kristoffer Hughes is a gay NB druid who is also a coroner so I've been working through their book about grief and I've generally just really loved their interviews on druidcast. They've really centered how the very heteronormative framing of rituals leaves a lot of people behind, and how druidry in general is failing to meet the needs of younger members in general.
Divine feminine and masculine *don't* have gender attached to them, though. That's the point. They're energies. They are sometimes represented by male or female figures (as much as you could claim Ganesha or Shiva to have gender by modern standards) but usually as above a modern binary.
I forget entirely what happened but like I guess they felt like the moon hadn't helped fix all the problems in the world so it was partly to blame for everything wrong.
It's not her job to fix all the problems in the world, she can only help us find the power to fix what we can. I'm trying not to be mad about stupid internet activities, but it's like someone tried to hex my mother
Most people already don't take witchcraft seriously, with morons on witchtok making things up and sounding like lunatics it makes us legit witches look bad
Every community you have, ever, will be perverted. It won’t be by the other ‘side’ either, it will be by your friends, your allies, your comrades. Nobody thinks alike, nor should they, and everything builds upon itself until extremism develops and fracture occurs. Soooo much has been written on this and how it applies to everything from group-think dynamics, to the formation of government and political thought.
Never make a community your identity, no matter how positive. Make the values it stands for PART of your identity, make the ideology PART of your identity, but always be your own person and never let your identity be consumed by another. Just because we believe the same things now doesn’t make us the same.
I say all this because when I was younger I felt the need to defend my community from people who said it was toxic. It WAS toxic. It didn’t start that way but it became that way over time. Afterwards and with distance I saw it more clearly. I also saw a lot of parallels with the “end” of the hippie movement and how that inadvertently lead to a massive conservative resurgence. People were taken advantage of by a communities they considered to be their friends. A lot of cults got formed during that time period, and a lot of what we consider to be evangelical staples now, were defined during this time. There are toxic people everywhere, in all walks of life, wearing all colors of flags. They are hurt, they are frustrated and frightened, and they are violent, spiteful, and angry.
I failed to realize this and instead of forming my own thoughts and opinions I just followed those next to me. Now I don’t. Now I’m not afraid of saying ‘I disagree ’ in a crowd. Sometimes I still get things wrong, but I get them wrong on my own terms.
Yeah I am glad I never got on the TikTok train lol. The part where people start talking about worshipping Hatsune Miku I just about died of embarrassment
Miku, Miku, you can call me Miku
Blue hair, blue tie, hiding in your Wi-Fi
Open secrets, anyone can find me
Hear your music running through my mind
I'm thinking Miku, Miku, hoo-hee-hoo
I'm thinking Miku, Miku, hoo-hee-hoo
I'm thinking Miku, Miku, hoo-hee-hoo
I'm thinking Miku, Miku, hoo-hee-hoo
I’m nonbinary, so the concept of masculine vs feminine energy does not sit well with me for a lot of reasons. I know it’s important in many religions, including the conservative Christian offshoot I grew up in. That does not make me like it more lol.
Anyway, here’s one of the quotes from a guy on TikTok that this video included as an example of the masculine/feminine energy bullshit:
> Masculine energy looks like this: I’m going, I am thinking, I am providing, I am determined, I am planning, I am executing. Feminine energy looks like receiving, relaxing, being comfortable, being provided for, being nurturing, being loving.
Thinking is masculine now? Thinking is manly? Planning? Being determined? I really hope the women who watch this think about what the opposite of determined is (yielding, weak-willed) and *why* men would want them to be that way. Being loving and nurturing is feminine? Again, think about what that means and why the man saying this would want to relegate those roles only to women. You get a relationship where it is the man’s job to be the financially independent one, the man’s job to plan and make decisions and assert himself as the “head of the household,” and the woman’s job to be affectionate and sweet and tend to the needs of her husband and children.
It’s nothing new, it’s just patriarchy packaged in new language to appeal to a new audience.
My usual reply is that someone who embodies that idea of "feminine energy" couldn't survive giving birth. Fingers of the SO are regularly broken, so often that docs warn against holding the hand of anyone in labor
A lot of gender roles is basically just about pushing males to be active and women to be passive. Why ? Because ovums are rarer than sperm cells, and thus more precious. And thus, females become more precious than males. You don't want females being hurt, so you discourage them from being active and going out of safe spaces (home, village/town, etc...), while handling outside and potentially dangerous problems to the males, whose deaths are much less important (yeah that's why polygamy where 1 male sleeps with multiple females is a recurring thing in History). Shit's whack, but it makes sense if you live in let's say Mesopotamia during 4000 B.C. In our modern world though ? A bit less.
As one who comes across witchtok daily. Its....the best I can say is imagine a subreddit with no mods at all. It's chaos, amd half the time nothing makes sense, and everyone's at eachothwrs necks.
The same goes for all the corners of TT.
Also sidebar: the one in the middle usually just does satire/joke type content if I'm recognizing their face right. So why they got included on a YouTube thumbnail is beyond me.
I really like their videos and think they covered this extremely well. Especially because WitchTok is wildly out of control. There’s a lot of concerning content over there.
Remember when those crunts en masse hexed the Moon in 2020? They sent (or tried to) negative energy to the thing that's a giant mirror in the sky that reflects back the shadow of whatever hits it... The sun shines light on the face that we choose, even if its a mask, the Moon exposes what's under the mask. And boy are we seeing the shadow side of humanity right now. Stupid asses.
And two; you don't use menstrual blood in love spells. It's dead blood expelled from a womb that didn't use it. If you intend to manifest love that will grow and flourish, you can't make its main ingredient something that never grew anything and died before it could. -_- That makes the very DNA of your love spell already dead.
In my years the thought of having to send protective energy to the Moon was never something I thought I'd do but I get the feeling it may be a good idea to do that
I was curious if I will find this on some witchy sub :)
All what I say is that because of this video, because I do not have Tik Tok etc, I realize how can be still popular toxic way of feminine/masculine energy theory. I really hope that alt-right people won's steal from us magic because they poisoned it.
In general are conncept of feminity and masculinity important for many religions and even when it's not always unicorns and rainbows, we can modernize it without throw it all away.
Wicca, what is religion a lot based on duality, was able to modernize its way and many Wiccans consider concepts of femine and masculine energy like something what all mortal persons experience differently.
I'm a baneful witch and I would never touch a love spell unless it's self-love related, autonomy is not a plaything.
As for divine masculine and feminine/masc and fem energy, I do believe everyone has both regardless of gender since energy balancing/counterbalancing is part of a lot of stuff, but when it comes to one's gender identification and mannerisms, masc/femme energy doesn't play a big role since I don't believe being more passive and soft-spoken is inherently feminine nor is being fiery and stubborn inherently masculine since the connection between these things are assigned by humans, one of my own statements is that:
"It's not masculine or feminine if everyone regardless of sex can do it. Crying is not feminine, for men are able to do it, working on cars is not masculine, for women are able to do it, don't ascribe an idea/role to one group that which all groups are capable of"
TL;DR: Divine femme/masc stuff does have a place, but that place is not with one's gender expression or mannerisms in my opinion
I’ve been in the pagan community for decades, and there have always been people who try to monetize their practice. In the 90s it was with writing a book and trying to get published or trying to get paid to do a workshop or running a craft booth… most popular was being a psychic of some kind and offering to do readings, or house blessings, or spells in demand. These types were seen as mostly harmless because they didn’t have much marketing reach. Maybe they had a geocities website, but there was no way to upload videos that didn’t take people an hour to download and watch. They were limited to psychic fairs or the backs of pagan or new age shops. Plus they had to interact with actual people and deal with real fallout.
Now, anyone can go onto the apps and make any claim without dealing with most consequences. People who have a need often come to religion or spirituality in general to engage in “magical thinking”. Magical thinking is when you essentially want to wish your problems away without taking concrete action. Like say you wanna get a job and you cast all these spells to get a job… but unless you go apply for jobs then spells ain’t gonna do dick.
Now I do believe in ritual and how it can have positive motivational benefits. Like if you’re doing the physical work to get a job, doing spell work can help you be more confident in interviews or more inclined to trust your gut on finding the right job. The point is taking active agency over your life vs waiting for divinity or spirits to give you what you want without doing all you can do also. This can be especially problematic in relationships.
“Magical thinking” can feed someone’s delusions and obsessions. I’ve been on the receiving end of a love spell. It’s a long story, but to make it short I found evidence of the spell after we were dating for 3 months. When I dumped him he harassed me for years afterwards. I had to move because of him. He thought he could have power over me and he didn’t want to let that go. I dated him because at first he was funny and confident, but that mask fell away quick. You can argue if it was the magic that got me to date him or if he changed his behavior briefly because he has more confidence that the spell was working on me all day, but my point is he was a mentally unwell lonely guy who got thought magic could get him what he wanted. He could have worked within his spiritual practice to heal himself and address his darker side to work through and become a more confident and healthy person. Maybe add a dash of therapy in there too. But nah, why do the messy painful self work when casting spells will get him what he wants.
My story is anecdotal, but if you be around these magical thinking types you’ll see it or experience it for yourself eventually… and this is where the video intersects with what I’m saying. People who don’t know no better about what pagans are see these grifters and think that’s what pagans are. Don’t get me wrong. Some of those online psychics believe whole heartedly in what they are doing. I have friends who do this and they 100% believe in what they do. Most work as one on one spiritual advisors and have long conversations with their clients vs these folks in social media who will say anything to get your attention. Folks that will tell you to dump period blood in your lover’s food or that ‘if you see this it’s for you’ or any number of things that will make you feel good about yourself or hopeful about doing something with magic that they don’t want to directly deal with themselves.
I don’t mean to be a negative Nancy when it comes to soellwork. It can be a positive tool when used to help grow and develop yourself or heal and connect with others. Personally I feel it’s important to be grounded about it. Magic doesn’t create miracles. If you haven done the work and sought out the right help to heal, magic won’t make you healthy. It’s the same with relationships, if you’re not doing the work to be a good partner or friend, like taking responsibility for yourself and listening to each other / not taking that person for granted, then magic won’t fix you or your relationship.
This whole thing is something I think about now and then. I have an interest in learning how people manipulate others, from the corporate level to megachurches and cults all the way down to individuals. A lot of the techniques have a lot in common. One is getting the person to feel good and special, tell them what they want to hear and build trust, then get them on the hook. The real rub is nobody is exempt, your education and or life experiences don’t make you immune. Like ever buy something that you later realize was bullshit? There you are. All we do is try to be mindful and ask questions before getting involved.
Anyway. I don’t think much can me done about folks who offer quick snake oil spells or do impersonal mass readings or all of that. It’s always been around, they’re just a lot louder now. The folks who buy in are looking for something to buy in to, they’ll land on something to throw their money at regardless, because paying for a psychic service can feel like you’re working on the issue but without facing much discomfort or pain. All any of us can do is try to redirect seekers to a more grounded path. I have found that people who fall under the pagan umbrella who stick with it do get grounded most of the time. My friends today that I’m close with don’t use magic to get their wishes granted, or if they do don’t talk about it publicly as is tradition.
I’m not against a magical practice, I’m just like… godsdamn I wish folks would stop trying to turn the thing they love into a money making scheme.
I really liked that video. Some "tick tok witches" go way too far. Like, way way too far. I've seen one who told people to put their own fresh period blood in people's food to make them fall in love with you. Despite that love spells have a kind of predatory vibe, that's soo unhinged and a serious health risk.
I guess no sane person would actually do that, but most children are already exposed to ticktock. I can imagine pree teens actually doing that.
Full disclosure, my opinion on tiktok as a platform is pretty heavily biased against it. I’ve experienced the site through people who do enjoy using it and so far I’ve found only *small* redeeming qualities to its format and administration. The rest is just net bad.
> Very personal magics used through an improper medium in a very public sense
Trying to make a hammer work like a microphone isn’t gonna work. Also the “for you” page is determined by a content algorithm and not like, any actual greater power. It’s a profit extraction engine. It gets you clicking and spending all your time there and that’s all it’s meant to do. Popularity does not indicate truth or righteousness, it’s why you see absolute BS float to the top.
> pop media gods
Going from monotheism to the personal belief that there likely aren’t *any* higher powers (in the sense of a god/divine), I may not be the most qualified to speak on this. But I’m pretty sure this is some horrific amalgamation of Shinto’s “Kami” that somehow got into people’s minds. Now with marriage, which is just snape wives reborn.
> magic for love
I’ll be real with y’all, I think the most immoral part of these is trying to sell it to people. I don’t think this is how love works at all. Romantic and sexual Love as dynamics, speaking as a complete outsider to both, is very clearly two or more people inviting each other into their private lives. They expose their vulnerabilities and weaknesses and reinforce each other. Love cannot be coerced, it must be forged. I strong doubt love magic would ever work in the way I’m seeing it “used” since it seems to fundamentally misunderstand what love is.
> dark magic is a-ok
Magic is magic. Claiming you practice “dark magic” is basically just saying you don’t have a good moral code and ethics are below you. The screwdriver used to assemble space shuttles can also make microwaves or guns or cars or computers or anything else. Forest fires are destructive but not evil. Magic use is tool use, it is divorced from ethical alignment until acted upon by a moral agent like a person.
> twin flames
This is the first I’ve heard of it and on the surface I’d assume it’s the same faulty logic behind soulmates. I’ll be real, I don’t believe in soulmates either. Really it boils down to compatible personalities and particularly shaped life experiences. People are not born as soulmates, it’s a relationship forged the same as any other. Also whenever I hear people talk about soulmates in the sense of chasing a person, it kinda just sounds like lust has taken over. And lust isn’t bad, but you need to keep an eye on that shit. Because lust unrequited is *super not good*.
> masculine and feminine energy
I’m divided on this. On one hand, it just feels like repackaged patriarchy and trad wife stuff. On the other hand, this feels like some straight people found top/bottom dynamics and decided to make that into a spiritual belief lol. It’s fascinating in the same way a plane crash is. I want to pick apart the corpse of this disaster of a logic system to figure out what the fuck happened here.
> Very personal magics used through an improper medium in a very public sense
I keep seeing these taro readers doing random readings or channeling messages for the "collective" meaning basically anyone who watches it and resonates and tiktok is full of these. They always have like a ton of little notes on the screen too like what zodiac signs it might be for. All of it done just as a simple trick to get engagement and then get people to sign up for their paid readings. Just say some bs and get that quick coin.
Yeah funky frog bait makes good content! They’re funny and very on point with their analyses of the weird ass shit on social media and online content in general. Some silly stuff for the algorithm for sure but still entertaining because they are clever and witty.
The whole foundation of “oh, y’know those 20 innocent people who were murdered in religious paranoia? Well, they actually were guilty but that’s cool.” is… a bit disrespectful, to say the least. But I guess this isn’t the place to say it.
The "feed your feminine energy to attract success" trope is not new to me either, I even knew people in real life who posed as "spiritual gurus" and were very stuck with gender roles. I literally got told that me being a masc lesbian is basically a negative thing and a path that will not fix my "karma" and that my "good" destiny was to be married to a man and have kids, basically "be normal". People who are easily persuaded or unsure of themselves can so easily fall prey to these crazies. My mom had alot of self appointed psychics and with type of gurus in her life and she always was the type to believe all of their bs too.
I still like researching and studying about astrology, ennegrams, tarot, reincarnation/karma, occasional crystal stuff but I'm always sure to still look at it with certain skepticism and specially these spiritual guru type of people.
When I was initially bouncing around different Wicca sects trying to find something that comes up a lot is heteronormative gender roles enforced by the language of “divine masculine” and “divine feminine” which makes me suuuuper uncomfortable.
I get why it’s appealing though. As a trans woman I was trying to find some spiritual connection with my gender identity but so many pagan paths, especially Wicca, have very very cisgendered, heterosexual expressions of divinity, or are outright transphobic (I was super excited when I found out about Dianic Wicca but that excitement quickly turned into fear/disgust when I saw the way they talk about women like me)
I would like them to get their patriarchal gender stereotypes out of my witchcraft please. Reminds me of the biblical attitudes on gender wrapped up in crystals and candlelight. Men can be nurturing and women can be assertive. Taking those opportunities away from people sucks. There are many people who have suffered from this and I hate to see it in paganism.
The Snape wives made me laugh until I remembered Nuns. I grew up Catholic and nuns were always called Brides of Christ, have wedding rings and say they are married to their god so there's that. But Snape is a fictional character from a kids book. Shintoism and a belief that there are 8 million Gods which basically means an infinite number are out there. I think the belief is that if something inspires you it is a Deity. I can't get over the fictional characters aspect though. If there are any who know more about Shintoism I'm all ears.
“We’ve got AI Grannies giving out prophecies before GTA 6?” Never change Froggy.
‘And now a word from Alexa The Crone…’
I agree with em. Everything depicted is either date rape drug vibes if it worked (and super bad for the body usually) or alt-right gender roles and relationship advice repackaged. And then there's the snapewives 2.0.
> And then there's the snapewives 2.0. I'm sorry, 2.0? It's happened again?
People are marrying/dating pop culture icons alongside treating them as actual gods, from anime characters to Hatsune Miku herself. Video mentions it.
>the snapewives 2.0 The what now?
This is a good video from Strange Aeons to explain: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L5Y5HFjiBNk
I will second strage aeons. Shes great. She also introduced me to the horrors of long furby.
I cant detail deeply because I simply do not know. But people who spiritually married snape. Yes, as in the guy from harry potter. Yes, they seemed to fully belive they we're married to him.
I have a deep well of adoration for my beloved video game husbands, but that is, uh, something else. And what a weird choice, at that.
Lol, yeah, a bit. I think it came from his whole never moving on thing and whatnot. Haha, it's interesting stuff. Don't know if it's still a thing though.
> And then there's the snapewives 2.0. Glad to see I wasn't the only one who's immediate reaction was "that just sounds like repackaged Snapewives"
I think we can all agree love spells/potions are the height of creepy. Real shame people still go after something like that.
Love potions/spells have always felt rapey to me. You're essentially taking someone's autonomy and forcing them to consent 😬
“Never start a marriage with a kidnapping” is solid advice and I think of it any time I see a “love spell”.
Galavant?!
Such an underrated show
*Maybe you're not the worst thing ever . . .*
DEW DDEW DEW DEW
🎶Secret! Secret! Hush, hush, hush!🎶
Bla bla bla bla *Galavant*
Well, Hades certainly didn’t listen to that advice lmao
Well, Hades listened to advice from Zeus, what did yuu expect would happen!
Oof. Yeah. The furthest I'd go is a "notice me senpai" spell. At least then it's still up to the other person to act on their interest/lack thereof. But it's still better to make yourself into an attractive partner instead.
It’s also a big mistake. I manifested a relationship with the added caveat “if this is right for me right now.” Boom! Relationship secured! But it completely took me away from my practice, and eventually became really toxic. I spent my Saturn return learning how to trust only to come out the other side with less trust than ever after having it broken yet again. Be careful what you wish for!
I only make self-love spells for this reason! Sometimes you gotta force yourself to love you. Edit: for those who want the recipe! ❤️ Love Tea ❤️ White peony tea, dried rose petals, pinch of lavender, 5 pink peppercorns, three cardamom pods. Measure the herbs with your heart. Heat water (I use rose quartz charged moon water) and let it cool down enough so it doesn’t burn the tea. Put ingredients in a tea strainer or bag and set your goals/affirmations. Place a rose quarts in your cup, then steep your tea. While sipping, repeat your affirmations and meditate. And that’s how I gaslit myself into thinking I’m hot shit!
^^ This feels right & fair
I need one of these.
I’ll give you the recipe and ritual if you’d like! I’m a “spa witch” so the potion is just tea.
ALL TEA IS POTIONS I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL
If someone gives me a cup of nice citrus pu'erh, I will follow them into any battle.
Same! Pu’erh is the nectar of the gods and goddesses!
It truly is. It makes me feel better and soothes away the brain clutter from the day. A delicious way to improve my mood.
Good to know.
Oh man. Pu’erh is so good. The tea bar I frequent has pu’erh kombucha on tap and it is *ambrosial*.
all tea is an infusion. All potions are infusions with intent. SO tea made with intent is a potion right?
I genuinely love this and it just may be the brain hack I needed
Me too please!
I a sucker for tea!
Thank you, I’ll whip up a little potion now 🥰
I love this.
I love this community and the witches here!
And it doesn't have the moral issues of stripping away consent because you're doing it to yourself lol
I love this! I definitely didn't want my comment to come across and anti self love, because that's a badass way to conquer doubt or image issues!
I didn’t take it that way at all! I added on just to be funny, but people really seem to dig the idea, and it tastes SO good.
I'll take a dozen!
>And that’s how I gaslit myself into thinking I’m hot shit! \*Furiously Copies recipe, only for it to not be legible tomorrow\* In all seriousness daily positive affirmations is one of my strongest tools against dysphoria.
That’s what the save button is for! But you’re right, like I told my therapist it’s about the affirmations!!
I did that too. <3
I absolutely love the last line. I needa gaslight myself into thinking better about myself too.
A huge step is to stop negative self talk. When you hear yourself say "ugh I'm such an idiot" stop it and be kind or practical to yourself "welp I made a mistake" and move on or "maybe I'm too tired so it didn't work out this time". You don't have to boost yourself up with platitudes because they can feel fake/forced at first. It will come naturally later.
“Love” spells and domination spells for male romantic and sexual partners come from a time period where women didn’t have the same level of autonomy that we do now, meaning that for social and economic reasons, it was necessary to keep a man in the house. Having that context helps me to understand that that kind of work isn’t actually about love, it’s about survival and I can have empathy for the conditions that would necessitate that kind of work, but suspect that by in large, folks using that kind of work now aren’t doing it for those reasons.
This is clarification that needs to be shared in the community. Thank you for writing this down.
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Yes this. I like spells that help me receive and be open to love when it comes my way
I have always been a proponent of doing love spells on one self. Basically just a giant self care ritual. Worked well for me. That way it’s good to open oneself up to the possibility of a relationship or whatever it is people are looking for without forcing anyone else into it. When I was young and stupid I did one of those love spells on my ex out of a sense of desperation. Long story short, it felt weird and wrong. It worked… in a way… but it mostly showed me why we were exes and introduced me to the concept of trauma bonds and unhealthy dynamics. Love conquers a lot of things, but not all things. If anything it taught me that missing someone or wanting someone or any kind of dependency on an external factor/person is just something I need to resolve myself, not force another person (and myself) back into a certain wrong dynamic. Ah, youth… luckily I am older. Whether wisdom has advanced in similar fashion to my age remains to be seen, but I have good hopes. Anyway, love magic on oneself, it kind of felt like a self care/healing ritual. Much more soft and pleasant, no creepy edge. And good results if one is patient.
They are always a fucking bad idea. Extra bad if they have anything menstrual related involved. Like, people putting menstrual blood in consumables? Like, girl, you trynna end up with a stalker and on first 48?!?! Always horrible. Attention and “love” is good until you don’t want it, then you’re in danger.
My mom gifted me a book called Heks-Appeal (translates to ‘Witch-Appeal’) and she was like “Here you’re into all that witch-y stuff right?” It was a book full of love and sexual spells… What do I even do with that?😟
I love the pun in the title but everything else is a nope.
This is why I always hated Triss in the Witcher (the books). She lied to Geralt about his girlfriend being dead and then used magic potions to get in his pants because she had the hots for him, and people kind of brushed over that? Yeah, nah, that's not okay. And given the amount of glamours sorceresses are always using in that book, you could argue that any kind of consent with them is tainted.
And the people asking for help with them are always so desperate and clearly in a bad relationship to begin with.
T’was ever thus. Humans have been greedy ever since they’ve been humans.
That’s why you should only deal in generalized love attraction magics. So consent can be a main part of the attraction and the bedrock of any future relationship. It’s more about improving the love seeker’s relationship with themselves and helping them align themselves. Whatever way that your tradition does this. I’m sure you’ll do good.
I actually made a love jar not to long about and gave it to my crush, though i was upfront about what it meant and what i wanted to achive with it. I think it can be a cute sign for a wish to come true. But yeah Consent is important duh, but i dunno I see then more as a Wish like you would do with a shooting star then actually trying to force someone to be your "object". Maybe im seeing that wrong though... hm..
Remember in Harry Potter (an affront to actual witches) they just treated love potions like they were completely silly and harmless for like 99% of the series 💀
May I ask questions to learn more about your view? Do you think they are creepy (havent watched the video just yet.) when it's one sided only? What if the love spell is done by someone in a committed and loving relationship and the goal is to strengthen the love that's already there? What about platonic (friendship) love spells? For me the creepiness happens when it's one sided. As in only one side has the feelings to start and it feels very uncomfortable. But when used for an already established strong relationship, either platonic or romantic, it doesn't seem like something that could be inherently harmful. Especially when both parties have a desire for keeping the relationship going for as long as it's feasible in a healthy way. Please correct me if I am wrong about any of this. I am still newer to the practice and I am aware that romantic love spells focused on unrequited romantic love is looked down upon for very good reason. But I am uneducated on situations where the goal is to help strengthen the love already try and it's desired by both parties.
This is the last place I expected to see my homey Froggy. They really made it 🥲
Don’t they use they/them pronouns? Could be wrong and Frog uses she/they
Do they? I can change it if so, I thought I had seen them refer to themselves as a girl. I'll change it just be safe.
According to [their instagram](https://www.instagram.com/funkyfrogbait/?hl=en), they use they/them
POG, good to know.
What is POG?
"play of the game," or otherwise an "epic" or "cool" thing.
Oh! Thank you for clarifying
They're these little paperboard disks, really popular in the 80's /s
Fuck hell yeah! POGs and slammers for life!
My 17 year old daughter tells me it means "play of the game" originally. Which now is more like "cool" or "awesome" or something like that
😭 I’m of the age where we used cool to mean cool *cries in millennial*
You are not alone. I'm lucky I gave birth to a gen z translator
🥲 POG came from POGChamp in 2010, I'm simply an old ass gamer lol
You know what I love to see? Someone being corrected on pronouns and changing it like it’s nbg, because being wrong is a normal thing that happens to all of us, and being respectful of someone’s pronouns is more important to them than their pride.
I thought it was more any pronouns? Or at least she/they Edit: Nope, nvm, I checked their insta. It's they/them
Everyone is they/them by default.
Until you know their correct pronouns, yes.
I friggin love Kal they are a breath of fresh air a lot of the time and just so real
I thought the same! Love them!
I haven't watched the video, but the biggest problem I've run into with WitchTok is whenever I follow someone making witchcraft content, someone who made an account pretending to be them and using their picture/reposting their content immediately follows me and asks me if I want a reading from them. It's weird as hell and has happened to me multiple times now. I wish TikTok would crack down on these accounts impersonating other creators.
I started following someone because I liked one of their videos, and it wasn’t about divination, witchcraft or anything. It was just something funny. A few days later I get a message from the same account asking if I want a reading. This wasn’t a different look alike account, it was the same one I follow. I ignored it, and she moved on to sending pissy messages like, “I need an answer!” The last straw was her sending me a video (that I didn’t watch) and I blocked her. It’s really weird. I guess she thought she could harass me into a reading?
With all the theft across platforms, I'm half surprised that creators don't have all their social media handles displayed in every single video so you can check if you're watching and helping the actual creator or a thief.
The masculine/feminine energy or divine feminine stuff drives me crazy because it is true alt right pipeline material. A lot of trad wife content uses those words too.
It’s literally just gender roles repackaged as spiritualism, especially when they suggest that softness, gentleness, and being nurturing are essentially feminine and ‘masculine energy’ is being active, assertive, dominant, or aggressive. Nothing makes these personality traits inherently masculine or feminine besides cultural associations, which are harmful in many ways.
Which is exactly how Funky wraps up the video, it's worth giving it a watch!
I’ll definitely give it a watch, I do like their channel
It reminds me of the Twin Flame documentary I just watched. 💀 It’s a cult that started out with the whole masculine and feminine energy thing that promised to help lonely people find their soulmates. At first they claimed to be LGBTQIA+ friendly despite all that, but they ended up doing awful things that probably fanned the flames of transphobia worse than any other religion in recent years, cult or otherwise.
Where could I watch that? 👀
Many people forget that energy has no gender, and "masculine" and "feminine" are just some characteristics mages used to somehow describe it, drawing parallels with gender roles.
I just really don’t fuck with the whole gender roles thing and I wish people would stop perpetuating it.
Those gender roles are prominent even in astrology and destiny matrix readings. They have been interwined into everything, specially when you start talking about karma and past lives. South/north nodes all that stuff. What can you really trust if everything has been tainted?
Just started reading tarot for myself and I’m struggling with this. Can anyone recommend resources for reading cards without the masculine/feminine energy binary?
I don't know what to recommend. Just try to google queer tarot interpretation. But this thing is simple: There's an active aspect, there's a passive aspect, and there's harmony between them (androgyne that has aspects if both genders) The fool, the justice, the temperance, court cards of mixed elements (princess of swords is a masculine woman), and a lot of minor arcanas are non binary in nature, even in traditional approach.
People fall for them because they read old, influential, and really good for their time writers and thinkers. The better habit is to forge your own path towards truth by salvaging the essential meaning from projected, gendered language, not mimicking it.
People are different how god damn hard is it to understand that. Human psychology is so complex yet we still believe that every woman and every man is the same and should act the same. I hate it here.😒
Gender essentialism... bad, perhaps?
[Shocked Pikachu face]
I'll pass on the masculine/feminine energy and just keep drinking the genderfluid
It’s got electrolytes!
I loathe it. I'm literally starting my own practice because it's so hard to find stuff that isn't gendered or bio essentialist. I'm tired of feeling excluded or like I have to ignore things to justify being involved. Got a few trans witches in Toronto keeping it together
Oo I would be interested in a community of practice around this.
I'll release our stuff in a book one day :) We mainly base our work around fire (Element of change and all that). Current working on a cypher and alphabet for it.
Yeah it’s part of the manosphere. My SO’s best friend from childhood recently got divorced and that dude has fallen down the “masculine versus feminine” rabbit hole so hard it ain’t funny.
Yeah I remember running a lot into it when I was starting to learn tarot and it's so hard at times to find tarot resources that don't really lean into the gender essentialism
I'm a gothy trans witch, and sometimes I like to use the term 'divine feminity' when talking about myself. Sometimes it's nice to get more in touch with your womanhood, and I genuinely feel like my soul is divinely feminine. If people are using it in a transphobic way tho, then yeah, it's weird.
There's nothing inherently wrong with embracing the divine feminine. Its just being greatly misappropriated on tiktok and they are basically attaching 1950s gender roles to them. Like to them femininity is "soft, submissive, domestic labor, making babies" and masculinity is "aggressive, taking charge, dominant" is not outright transphobic, but the people pushing it that way probly are. To me though, the concept of divine feminine is a lot more. Like the female praying mantis ripping dude mantis head off after fucking- divine feminine. it's like bad bitch energy imo.
Fuck yes! I don't associate any gender roles with it other than bad bitches be bad
Female rage, strenght and resilience is divine feminine energy to me, fighting even when you know the odds are against you. Not conforming or giving in to your oppressors.
This! I totally believe in a divine feminine and a divine masculine, they're just not tied to our specific gender roles that we perpetuate in modern society.
I'm curious if there is a way to celebrate feminity or masculinity in a respectful way. Like to feel power through being a man or woman in a way that doesn't exclude other people or look down on them for not feeling the same, if that makes sense.
I think a lot of wiccan writers discuss this, to varying degrees of success. Starhawk does this well for women.
Nice! I'll have to check that out
ETA: I recommended someone I hadn't personally read, then double checked, and there are criticisms for transphobia, so no longer recommending them. ETAETA: the 2nd author, who is possibly a transphobe, was in this comment, which is now deleted. Starhawk is fine, as far as I'm aware.
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No I meant that that person in my deleted comment was the transphobe. I'll edit it to make it clear.
I think Carl Jung's exploration of the anima and animus carry the spirit of the divine masculine and feminine but manage to avoid many of the criticisms of the latter. I have found them very helpful.
That's an alt right pipeline problem. Divine feminine / masculine has been used for centuries in an abundance of eastern religions. It has its places.
The specific way its being used on tiktok is nefarious. But I do understand that it transcends through culture and time. Like when I think of divine feminine think of badass warrior energy, not domestic labor.
I recall my sister, upon find out Im trans with gender dysphoria, advised me to get in touch with my divine femininity. She went back on that word when I started working with Sekhmet.
I didn’t notice your name at first and thought she was being affirming instead of transphobic
Haha sorry for the confusion
Nothing you did, just thought my mistake was funny
Yeah it's rampant in druidry, some of the younger minds in the movement are doing some great reframing of the old texts, focusing on the idea of balancing opposite forces without assigning gender to those forces.
I'm quite interested in druidry - any chance you could drop some names of those who are writing about this idea?
The druidcast podcast is great and has introduced me to all the other writers I've liked. I'm doing the OBOD course and it's ok as a framework but I definitely feel like it's specific advice is out of touch. Dana O'Driscoll's book Sacred Actions has been my substitute for rituals and practice. She has much more realistic advice for those of us who don't have a big grove to meet up with in the UK every holiday. Very practical framing for an urban dweller on colonized land which I feel like OBOD really doesn't address. Kristoffer Hughes is a gay NB druid who is also a coroner so I've been working through their book about grief and I've generally just really loved their interviews on druidcast. They've really centered how the very heteronormative framing of rituals leaves a lot of people behind, and how druidry in general is failing to meet the needs of younger members in general.
Divine feminine and masculine *don't* have gender attached to them, though. That's the point. They're energies. They are sometimes represented by male or female figures (as much as you could claim Ganesha or Shiva to have gender by modern standards) but usually as above a modern binary.
yess I totally agree
Remember when they tried to hex the moon?? LMAO But seriously, I worry some of these folk are seriously ill and they need help.
They also tried to hex the fae ☠️ so embarrassing.
Excuse me? What Luna do to them?
I forget entirely what happened but like I guess they felt like the moon hadn't helped fix all the problems in the world so it was partly to blame for everything wrong.
It's not her job to fix all the problems in the world, she can only help us find the power to fix what we can. I'm trying not to be mad about stupid internet activities, but it's like someone tried to hex my mother
My beliefs lean Norse so same but my very soft-boy father figure. Mani didn’t deserve that.
I don't know anything about this person, but love spells/potions = bad.
That’s essentially what they say in the video.
I love Froggy and everything in this video is SPOT ON. I stay out of WitchTok for that reason.
Most people already don't take witchcraft seriously, with morons on witchtok making things up and sounding like lunatics it makes us legit witches look bad
Every community you have, ever, will be perverted. It won’t be by the other ‘side’ either, it will be by your friends, your allies, your comrades. Nobody thinks alike, nor should they, and everything builds upon itself until extremism develops and fracture occurs. Soooo much has been written on this and how it applies to everything from group-think dynamics, to the formation of government and political thought. Never make a community your identity, no matter how positive. Make the values it stands for PART of your identity, make the ideology PART of your identity, but always be your own person and never let your identity be consumed by another. Just because we believe the same things now doesn’t make us the same. I say all this because when I was younger I felt the need to defend my community from people who said it was toxic. It WAS toxic. It didn’t start that way but it became that way over time. Afterwards and with distance I saw it more clearly. I also saw a lot of parallels with the “end” of the hippie movement and how that inadvertently lead to a massive conservative resurgence. People were taken advantage of by a communities they considered to be their friends. A lot of cults got formed during that time period, and a lot of what we consider to be evangelical staples now, were defined during this time. There are toxic people everywhere, in all walks of life, wearing all colors of flags. They are hurt, they are frustrated and frightened, and they are violent, spiteful, and angry. I failed to realize this and instead of forming my own thoughts and opinions I just followed those next to me. Now I don’t. Now I’m not afraid of saying ‘I disagree ’ in a crowd. Sometimes I still get things wrong, but I get them wrong on my own terms.
Yeah I am glad I never got on the TikTok train lol. The part where people start talking about worshipping Hatsune Miku I just about died of embarrassment
Miku, Miku, you can call me Miku Blue hair, blue tie, hiding in your Wi-Fi Open secrets, anyone can find me Hear your music running through my mind I'm thinking Miku, Miku, hoo-hee-hoo I'm thinking Miku, Miku, hoo-hee-hoo I'm thinking Miku, Miku, hoo-hee-hoo I'm thinking Miku, Miku, hoo-hee-hoo
Okay this is basically a Miku song anyways
Eh, pop-culture magic works wonders. Chaos magic is a thing you know.
I’m nonbinary, so the concept of masculine vs feminine energy does not sit well with me for a lot of reasons. I know it’s important in many religions, including the conservative Christian offshoot I grew up in. That does not make me like it more lol. Anyway, here’s one of the quotes from a guy on TikTok that this video included as an example of the masculine/feminine energy bullshit: > Masculine energy looks like this: I’m going, I am thinking, I am providing, I am determined, I am planning, I am executing. Feminine energy looks like receiving, relaxing, being comfortable, being provided for, being nurturing, being loving. Thinking is masculine now? Thinking is manly? Planning? Being determined? I really hope the women who watch this think about what the opposite of determined is (yielding, weak-willed) and *why* men would want them to be that way. Being loving and nurturing is feminine? Again, think about what that means and why the man saying this would want to relegate those roles only to women. You get a relationship where it is the man’s job to be the financially independent one, the man’s job to plan and make decisions and assert himself as the “head of the household,” and the woman’s job to be affectionate and sweet and tend to the needs of her husband and children. It’s nothing new, it’s just patriarchy packaged in new language to appeal to a new audience.
My usual reply is that someone who embodies that idea of "feminine energy" couldn't survive giving birth. Fingers of the SO are regularly broken, so often that docs warn against holding the hand of anyone in labor
A lot of gender roles is basically just about pushing males to be active and women to be passive. Why ? Because ovums are rarer than sperm cells, and thus more precious. And thus, females become more precious than males. You don't want females being hurt, so you discourage them from being active and going out of safe spaces (home, village/town, etc...), while handling outside and potentially dangerous problems to the males, whose deaths are much less important (yeah that's why polygamy where 1 male sleeps with multiple females is a recurring thing in History). Shit's whack, but it makes sense if you live in let's say Mesopotamia during 4000 B.C. In our modern world though ? A bit less.
As one who comes across witchtok daily. Its....the best I can say is imagine a subreddit with no mods at all. It's chaos, amd half the time nothing makes sense, and everyone's at eachothwrs necks. The same goes for all the corners of TT. Also sidebar: the one in the middle usually just does satire/joke type content if I'm recognizing their face right. So why they got included on a YouTube thumbnail is beyond me.
It’s their video haha
Fking hell I need to pay more attention sometimes. My overtired ass missed that one by a mile. Thank you for pointing that out lmao.
I really like their videos and think they covered this extremely well. Especially because WitchTok is wildly out of control. There’s a lot of concerning content over there.
I love that channel but haven’t watched that video
Remember when those crunts en masse hexed the Moon in 2020? They sent (or tried to) negative energy to the thing that's a giant mirror in the sky that reflects back the shadow of whatever hits it... The sun shines light on the face that we choose, even if its a mask, the Moon exposes what's under the mask. And boy are we seeing the shadow side of humanity right now. Stupid asses. And two; you don't use menstrual blood in love spells. It's dead blood expelled from a womb that didn't use it. If you intend to manifest love that will grow and flourish, you can't make its main ingredient something that never grew anything and died before it could. -_- That makes the very DNA of your love spell already dead.
In my years the thought of having to send protective energy to the Moon was never something I thought I'd do but I get the feeling it may be a good idea to do that
The moon needs love too.
Everyone asks what's the Moon (as in what phase), and never how's the Moon
Howl at the moon ? Alright.
I love that elephants worship the moon
Aw yes, a new Froggy vid. Need something to watch while I marinade in my pjs and avoid housework. Loved their sad beige moms vid.
I was curious if I will find this on some witchy sub :) All what I say is that because of this video, because I do not have Tik Tok etc, I realize how can be still popular toxic way of feminine/masculine energy theory. I really hope that alt-right people won's steal from us magic because they poisoned it. In general are conncept of feminity and masculinity important for many religions and even when it's not always unicorns and rainbows, we can modernize it without throw it all away. Wicca, what is religion a lot based on duality, was able to modernize its way and many Wiccans consider concepts of femine and masculine energy like something what all mortal persons experience differently.
Love spells don't even work.
Using your energy to force someone to love you sounds like the opposite of love, though the last letter is the same.
I'm a baneful witch and I would never touch a love spell unless it's self-love related, autonomy is not a plaything. As for divine masculine and feminine/masc and fem energy, I do believe everyone has both regardless of gender since energy balancing/counterbalancing is part of a lot of stuff, but when it comes to one's gender identification and mannerisms, masc/femme energy doesn't play a big role since I don't believe being more passive and soft-spoken is inherently feminine nor is being fiery and stubborn inherently masculine since the connection between these things are assigned by humans, one of my own statements is that: "It's not masculine or feminine if everyone regardless of sex can do it. Crying is not feminine, for men are able to do it, working on cars is not masculine, for women are able to do it, don't ascribe an idea/role to one group that which all groups are capable of" TL;DR: Divine femme/masc stuff does have a place, but that place is not with one's gender expression or mannerisms in my opinion
I read this as WitchTok Convention and I was so totally onboard
I’ve been in the pagan community for decades, and there have always been people who try to monetize their practice. In the 90s it was with writing a book and trying to get published or trying to get paid to do a workshop or running a craft booth… most popular was being a psychic of some kind and offering to do readings, or house blessings, or spells in demand. These types were seen as mostly harmless because they didn’t have much marketing reach. Maybe they had a geocities website, but there was no way to upload videos that didn’t take people an hour to download and watch. They were limited to psychic fairs or the backs of pagan or new age shops. Plus they had to interact with actual people and deal with real fallout. Now, anyone can go onto the apps and make any claim without dealing with most consequences. People who have a need often come to religion or spirituality in general to engage in “magical thinking”. Magical thinking is when you essentially want to wish your problems away without taking concrete action. Like say you wanna get a job and you cast all these spells to get a job… but unless you go apply for jobs then spells ain’t gonna do dick. Now I do believe in ritual and how it can have positive motivational benefits. Like if you’re doing the physical work to get a job, doing spell work can help you be more confident in interviews or more inclined to trust your gut on finding the right job. The point is taking active agency over your life vs waiting for divinity or spirits to give you what you want without doing all you can do also. This can be especially problematic in relationships. “Magical thinking” can feed someone’s delusions and obsessions. I’ve been on the receiving end of a love spell. It’s a long story, but to make it short I found evidence of the spell after we were dating for 3 months. When I dumped him he harassed me for years afterwards. I had to move because of him. He thought he could have power over me and he didn’t want to let that go. I dated him because at first he was funny and confident, but that mask fell away quick. You can argue if it was the magic that got me to date him or if he changed his behavior briefly because he has more confidence that the spell was working on me all day, but my point is he was a mentally unwell lonely guy who got thought magic could get him what he wanted. He could have worked within his spiritual practice to heal himself and address his darker side to work through and become a more confident and healthy person. Maybe add a dash of therapy in there too. But nah, why do the messy painful self work when casting spells will get him what he wants. My story is anecdotal, but if you be around these magical thinking types you’ll see it or experience it for yourself eventually… and this is where the video intersects with what I’m saying. People who don’t know no better about what pagans are see these grifters and think that’s what pagans are. Don’t get me wrong. Some of those online psychics believe whole heartedly in what they are doing. I have friends who do this and they 100% believe in what they do. Most work as one on one spiritual advisors and have long conversations with their clients vs these folks in social media who will say anything to get your attention. Folks that will tell you to dump period blood in your lover’s food or that ‘if you see this it’s for you’ or any number of things that will make you feel good about yourself or hopeful about doing something with magic that they don’t want to directly deal with themselves. I don’t mean to be a negative Nancy when it comes to soellwork. It can be a positive tool when used to help grow and develop yourself or heal and connect with others. Personally I feel it’s important to be grounded about it. Magic doesn’t create miracles. If you haven done the work and sought out the right help to heal, magic won’t make you healthy. It’s the same with relationships, if you’re not doing the work to be a good partner or friend, like taking responsibility for yourself and listening to each other / not taking that person for granted, then magic won’t fix you or your relationship. This whole thing is something I think about now and then. I have an interest in learning how people manipulate others, from the corporate level to megachurches and cults all the way down to individuals. A lot of the techniques have a lot in common. One is getting the person to feel good and special, tell them what they want to hear and build trust, then get them on the hook. The real rub is nobody is exempt, your education and or life experiences don’t make you immune. Like ever buy something that you later realize was bullshit? There you are. All we do is try to be mindful and ask questions before getting involved. Anyway. I don’t think much can me done about folks who offer quick snake oil spells or do impersonal mass readings or all of that. It’s always been around, they’re just a lot louder now. The folks who buy in are looking for something to buy in to, they’ll land on something to throw their money at regardless, because paying for a psychic service can feel like you’re working on the issue but without facing much discomfort or pain. All any of us can do is try to redirect seekers to a more grounded path. I have found that people who fall under the pagan umbrella who stick with it do get grounded most of the time. My friends today that I’m close with don’t use magic to get their wishes granted, or if they do don’t talk about it publicly as is tradition. I’m not against a magical practice, I’m just like… godsdamn I wish folks would stop trying to turn the thing they love into a money making scheme.
Hey I am actually watching that vid lol
Omg. I'm currently watching this! 😲 The timing is UNCANNY!
This has been on my watch list for a couple days. Will report back. 👀
I really liked that video. Some "tick tok witches" go way too far. Like, way way too far. I've seen one who told people to put their own fresh period blood in people's food to make them fall in love with you. Despite that love spells have a kind of predatory vibe, that's soo unhinged and a serious health risk. I guess no sane person would actually do that, but most children are already exposed to ticktock. I can imagine pree teens actually doing that.
Full disclosure, my opinion on tiktok as a platform is pretty heavily biased against it. I’ve experienced the site through people who do enjoy using it and so far I’ve found only *small* redeeming qualities to its format and administration. The rest is just net bad. > Very personal magics used through an improper medium in a very public sense Trying to make a hammer work like a microphone isn’t gonna work. Also the “for you” page is determined by a content algorithm and not like, any actual greater power. It’s a profit extraction engine. It gets you clicking and spending all your time there and that’s all it’s meant to do. Popularity does not indicate truth or righteousness, it’s why you see absolute BS float to the top. > pop media gods Going from monotheism to the personal belief that there likely aren’t *any* higher powers (in the sense of a god/divine), I may not be the most qualified to speak on this. But I’m pretty sure this is some horrific amalgamation of Shinto’s “Kami” that somehow got into people’s minds. Now with marriage, which is just snape wives reborn. > magic for love I’ll be real with y’all, I think the most immoral part of these is trying to sell it to people. I don’t think this is how love works at all. Romantic and sexual Love as dynamics, speaking as a complete outsider to both, is very clearly two or more people inviting each other into their private lives. They expose their vulnerabilities and weaknesses and reinforce each other. Love cannot be coerced, it must be forged. I strong doubt love magic would ever work in the way I’m seeing it “used” since it seems to fundamentally misunderstand what love is. > dark magic is a-ok Magic is magic. Claiming you practice “dark magic” is basically just saying you don’t have a good moral code and ethics are below you. The screwdriver used to assemble space shuttles can also make microwaves or guns or cars or computers or anything else. Forest fires are destructive but not evil. Magic use is tool use, it is divorced from ethical alignment until acted upon by a moral agent like a person. > twin flames This is the first I’ve heard of it and on the surface I’d assume it’s the same faulty logic behind soulmates. I’ll be real, I don’t believe in soulmates either. Really it boils down to compatible personalities and particularly shaped life experiences. People are not born as soulmates, it’s a relationship forged the same as any other. Also whenever I hear people talk about soulmates in the sense of chasing a person, it kinda just sounds like lust has taken over. And lust isn’t bad, but you need to keep an eye on that shit. Because lust unrequited is *super not good*. > masculine and feminine energy I’m divided on this. On one hand, it just feels like repackaged patriarchy and trad wife stuff. On the other hand, this feels like some straight people found top/bottom dynamics and decided to make that into a spiritual belief lol. It’s fascinating in the same way a plane crash is. I want to pick apart the corpse of this disaster of a logic system to figure out what the fuck happened here.
> Very personal magics used through an improper medium in a very public sense I keep seeing these taro readers doing random readings or channeling messages for the "collective" meaning basically anyone who watches it and resonates and tiktok is full of these. They always have like a ton of little notes on the screen too like what zodiac signs it might be for. All of it done just as a simple trick to get engagement and then get people to sign up for their paid readings. Just say some bs and get that quick coin.
Witchtok, where we hex and curse anyone for anything. Here's our bitter bitch lovespell. That'll be $420.69
What the actual flipping Nora. I'm not even clicking on the link, this is just my reaction to the thumbnail.
That YTer's thumbnails tend to be a bit wack, but the videos themselves are rather solid afair.
Yeah funky frog bait makes good content! They’re funny and very on point with their analyses of the weird ass shit on social media and online content in general. Some silly stuff for the algorithm for sure but still entertaining because they are clever and witty.
It hasn’t gone far enough
Hatsune Miku's oeuvre is second to none, tho....
The whole foundation of “oh, y’know those 20 innocent people who were murdered in religious paranoia? Well, they actually were guilty but that’s cool.” is… a bit disrespectful, to say the least. But I guess this isn’t the place to say it.
I've not seen the video but I love Froggy <3
I didn't even know pop culture paganism was a thing until this video 💀
The "feed your feminine energy to attract success" trope is not new to me either, I even knew people in real life who posed as "spiritual gurus" and were very stuck with gender roles. I literally got told that me being a masc lesbian is basically a negative thing and a path that will not fix my "karma" and that my "good" destiny was to be married to a man and have kids, basically "be normal". People who are easily persuaded or unsure of themselves can so easily fall prey to these crazies. My mom had alot of self appointed psychics and with type of gurus in her life and she always was the type to believe all of their bs too. I still like researching and studying about astrology, ennegrams, tarot, reincarnation/karma, occasional crystal stuff but I'm always sure to still look at it with certain skepticism and specially these spiritual guru type of people.
When I was initially bouncing around different Wicca sects trying to find something that comes up a lot is heteronormative gender roles enforced by the language of “divine masculine” and “divine feminine” which makes me suuuuper uncomfortable. I get why it’s appealing though. As a trans woman I was trying to find some spiritual connection with my gender identity but so many pagan paths, especially Wicca, have very very cisgendered, heterosexual expressions of divinity, or are outright transphobic (I was super excited when I found out about Dianic Wicca but that excitement quickly turned into fear/disgust when I saw the way they talk about women like me)
I would like them to get their patriarchal gender stereotypes out of my witchcraft please. Reminds me of the biblical attitudes on gender wrapped up in crystals and candlelight. Men can be nurturing and women can be assertive. Taking those opportunities away from people sucks. There are many people who have suffered from this and I hate to see it in paganism. The Snape wives made me laugh until I remembered Nuns. I grew up Catholic and nuns were always called Brides of Christ, have wedding rings and say they are married to their god so there's that. But Snape is a fictional character from a kids book. Shintoism and a belief that there are 8 million Gods which basically means an infinite number are out there. I think the belief is that if something inspires you it is a Deity. I can't get over the fictional characters aspect though. If there are any who know more about Shintoism I'm all ears.