Magic for the Resistance
#resist
As I wrote in preface to the new edition of Magic for the Resistance: Rituals and Spells for Change, I never thought I would need to write a revised and updated version of the book.
We had gathered at midnight under every waning crescent moon since February 2017, in groups or as individuals, to bind Donald Trump and all those who abetted him. The ritual I wrote, which went immediately viral and was covered everywhere from CNN to Fox News, The Boston Globe and L.A. Times, to the BBC and Le Monde, led to the birth of what became known as the “magic resistance”—witches, pagans, and people of all spiritual beliefs working to remove Trump from office using ritual magic. It was an unprecedented marriage of spiritual resistance, ritual, and practical activism.
And then, when the 2020 election results rolled in, we breathed a collective sigh of relief. Donald J. Trump had been, as we called for in the ritual, driven from office.
The original version of the book went out of print, and the United States began to rebuild after the nightmare of 45’s administration. Finally, I could get back to doing other things on nights when the moon was in its final sliver (including getting to bed at a reasonable hour). I packed away my stubby orange candles and my steel Trump-binding sigil necklace and began dreaming of a better country, in which our defeat of a modern plague and escape from a close call with fascism could lead to a more fair, just, and humane world.
From the new preface:
After January 6, 2021, when the unequivocal loser whipped seditionists into a violent mob that broke into the Capitol to stop Joe Biden from being certified as the victor, I was certain America had learned its lesson…
I thought the beating of police with flag poles, the smearing of feces on the Capitol walls, the Q-Anon "Shaman" and guy with a handful of zip ties in the Senate Chamber, the "Hang Mike Pence" chants and guillotine on the Capitol lawn—all in an attempt to subvert the free and fair transfer of power—had finally convinced all but the most deranged, diehard MAGA cultists that Donald Trump was a dangerous, authoritarian sociopath who should never again hold public office.
And here we are, again. Only this time, things are far, far worse.
In fact, things are getting so bad, so quickly, it’s impossible to chronicle. The horror is unfolding in real-time, an endless live-action doomscrolling of atrocities—masked thugs throwing innocent men, women, and children into unmarked vans and disappearing them to foreign gulags, military troops occupying cities, food and medicine stolen from our most vulnerable, and the most violent and depraved usurping more and more power as they dismantle democracy.
The goal is to normalize and glorify cruelty, violence, vengeance, suffering, and break our spirits so our planet can be plundered by a cabal of criminals, suck-ups, and sociopaths.
More and more people began seeking copies of Magic for the Resistance, but it was hard to find, even on the used and collectible market. So when Crossed Crow Books approached me to reissue and updated version, I immediately said yes. I knew it was even more important now.
But to do the hard, grueling work necessary to restore kindness, decency, democracy, and humanity to our shattered world, we need to fortify ourselves. That means staying physically healthy, mentally well, and spiritually committed, in spite of the relentless onslaught of awfulness.
It’s time for a rebirth of the magic resistance.
Resistance is a spiritual battle
Perhaps the most important lesson I have learned from the past decade of spiritual activism is the vital importance of ritual. Even if you don’t believe personal rituals can effect changes in the outer world, they can, and do, enable powerful internal optimization. Let’s look at a couple of examples.
The Trump binding ritual—which I believe is the largest, longest running mass ritual in modern history—had one powerful effect on its practitioners, as hundreds of people have personally attested: It helped them survive the nightmare of Trump 1.0. It certainly helped me; many times, in the lead-up to the monthly ritual, I was mired in despair, depression, and feeling as if all of my marching, protests, phone calls, and daily acts of resistance were futile. But as I lit the stubby orange candle, and as I watched his ugly image burn, it changed me. With the final chant—“You’re fired! You’re fired! You’re FIRED!” as his image turned to ashes, and then a burst of joyous, mocking laughter, I felt reinvigorated, energized, and, perhaps most importantly, certain that we would prevail.
As Dimitris Xygalatas explains in his excellent book, Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living, magic is a tool to ritualize optimism. When we perform a ritual, it affects us physically, mentally, and emotionally, as demonstrated by hundreds of controlled studies. And when we work ritual together, Xygalatas says, it:
…Makes us part of something not only greater than ourselves but greater even than our entire social world, connecting us to a society of fellows that transcends place and time.
Collective rituals empower us to tap into our individual divinity, but when we enact rituals together, we experience the full extent of our collective power. It is healing, it is revitalizing, and it synergistically fuels our energetic batteries to do the hard work of fighting against the encroaching darkness. This was the greatest lesson of the Trump binding, as attested by so many of its practitioners.
That lesson led me to create what I believe is my second-most important ritual: The White Candle Conspiracy, which is detailed in the new edition (and also available here). The White Candle Conspiracy is a powerful, simple, easy ritual to connect us to the larger web of resistance around the world. Done sequentially across time zones, it creates a rolling ritual that washes across the planet. Best of all, it’s ecumenical, based on universal principles, so anyone from a Wiccan to an atheist for even a fundamentalist Christian could take part. It can be used by the spiritual and religious as a prayer, or by agnostics or atheists as an affirmation of beliefs.
Which brings me to a crucial point.
Ritual is for everyone
When the Spell to Bind Donald Trump and All Those Who Abet Him went viral, it was immediately embraced by witches and pagans. Which is not surprising, since when most people think of spells and rituals, they think of witches. Witchcraft has exploded in popularity in recent years, and has been adopted by the growing demographic of “spiritual but not religious (SBNRs).” In large part because of the popularity of the binding spell, witches became a public force in the larger resistance movement. I am humbled to have helped usher this phenomenon into the public eye.
But although I practice magic, and for a short period of time in the 1990s considered myself Wiccan, I am not a witch (though some of my best friends are witches—I love my witches!). Magic for the Resistance was tailored for the witch/pagan reader, which was commercially sensible, but my goal was to make the rituals within it ecumenical, because that’s how I create and practice what I call “experimental” magic—rooted in traditions both ancient and modern, conforming in many ways to scientific knowledge, flexible and non-dogmatic, and fueled by artistic vision.
Magic is our birthright, and rituals are how we humans have always marked pivotal moments in our lives, energized our creativity and desires, affirmed our highest principles, and optimized our existence. Rituals are simply what we do, just as we love, make art, and commune with other beings.
So if you are a witch or a pagan or an occultist, you will find much of Magic for the Resistance familiar, and it can be easily slotted into your tradition. But the majority of the rituals in the book can be used as by anyone, of any (or no) spiritual tradition. You can tweak, adjust, and expand the spells and rituals—and I hope you will! Take these workings and make them yours. Do them joyfully. But just do them, and notice the fire they ignite in your spiritual core.
And then share them, and bring others along with you as we fight against the darkness and embrace the sacred principles we affirm nightly in The White Candle Conspiracy:
Freedom
Knowledge
Truth
Peace
Tolerance
Compassion
Love
Now go make some magic! We need you now more than ever.
