my capstone: witchcraft as a tool of political counter-power

on witchcraft, subversion & the collective

fragment of Zuza Krajewska's "Kobiecy Krąg"

witchcraft as a subversive practice:

(1) feminist: relating to the liberation of the female body, sexuality, subjectivity, especially in the light of witch-hunt history and the history of patriarchy

(2) ecological: relating to the process of abolition of the modern paradigm of the human-nature relationship and transforming it into one based on relationality, rather than exploitation

(3) anti-capitalist: the archetype of a witch (as an independent, sexually and intelectually liberated) is a female subject that early capitalism had to destroy, as it demanded the female body to be domesticated and, thus, embracing that archetype in a modern context can have subversive qualities (Federici), but also the collective character of witchcraft practices and ways of structural organization of communities of witches, which oppose the individualistic character in which modern capitalist societies are organized

for rasl: a subversive potential of the collective

- as an exercise in the deconstruction of the individualistic organization of modern societies (structural level + collective character of numerous rituals, spells, practices)

- as claimed by Federici witchhunts targeted also women's associations, hence, the collective life that women have led with each other in the Middle Ages was destroyed

- as a way of bringing different bodies together and multiplying the voices and experiences

'The sexuality of female bodies was frightening both socially and economically for the bourgeoisie elites, which were scared of the power of the liberated force of Eros, especially within the capitalist system, which demanded the female body to be vastly tamed and domesticated" (Federici, 2018, p.44).

tarot & collective

Silvia Federici on witchhunts: “never in history have women been subjected to such a massive, internationally organised, legally approved, religiously blessed assault on their bodies” (2018, p. 46)

“The archetype of the witch is the only female archetype of full autonomy. She doesn’t allow anyone else to define who she is. Wife, sister, mother, virgin, whore —these archetypes are created through relations with others. The witch, on the other hand, is a woman governing herself, who doesn’t need any guidance and always lives unaided“ (Chollet, 2019, p. 76).

- also some witchcraft practices, such as Tarot, as a way of establishing a collective ground in which voices of marginalized bodies can flourish and visions of non-repressive societies can be discussed

- the pictures of the Tarot cards come from a realm beyond consciousness and cannot be ever fully grasped by a purely intellectual understanding, but rather have to be felt, sensed, and connected with on the dimensions different than the rational one

- understanding Tarot through Jungian terms it can be claimed that the realm to which these pictures relate is the collective unconscious

on the collective unconsciouss

“We can best connect with their meaning [Tarot cards] through analogy with myth, fairy tales, drama, paintings, events in history, or any other material with similar motifs which universally evoke clusters of feelings, intuitions, thoughts, or sensations“ (Nichols, 2019, p.7).

a layer of the human psyche, independent from the individual unconscious, but relating to the whole society at large and containing inherited elements, mythological motifs, and primordial images

through shifting the attention from the ego-centered analysis of the psyche to the one which as well includes the collective dimensions, can allow to establish a relationship with the world at large and start to direct the energy outwards rather than inwards and to form "unions with other bodies and stimulating connections with the outer world" (Morris, 2018, p.352)