Coming Out of the Broom Closet: Witches, Wiccans, and Queer Qabala

Esoteric spirituality on the rise, and I think I know why

I recently came out of the broom closet to a pair of Mormon missionaries. Don’t laugh. This is a true story.

A knock at my door one evening and I open it to see two very earnest young men smiling at me. The white shirts, name tags, a pair of bicycles sitting in the driveway, I recognize immediately these are Mormon missionaries. I preempt any introductory speech from them with the words, “Hi. He’s not here.”

You see, they are chasing after my ex-husband. They have been chasing after him for decades. When one leaves the Mormon Church, as my ex did ages ago, they come knocking, forever and ever thereafter, to ask you to reconsider. They mean well, but it is nonetheless sometimes spooky the way they manage to track people down.

Realizing my terse “he’s not here” was maybe a bit too abrupt, I add by way of further explanation, “We’re divorced. He doesn’t live here anymore.”

The older of the two of them offers condolences for the divorce, and I smile, shake my head, and wave that off.

The older of the two does all the talking for the pair. By older, I mean he looks maybe 19 years old, while his partner, I swear, looked like he was about 14. Maybe he was just one of those unfortunate men who suffer from the Elijah Wood syndrome; no matter how old he gets, he will always look about 14.

Anyway, back to my story.

The older one asks me if I could please give them my ex’s new address. For one moment, my vindictive side wants to do so, but I take pity on my ex, who is a newly minted devout Catholic, knowing perfectly well he does not want to be bothered by Mormon missionaries. I demur.

He then brightly asks me if they could speak to me then, like I am a consolation prize or something. I am just barely able to keep myself from laughing out loud. He doesn’t know I am originally from Salt Lake City. He doesn’t know he is seriously barking up the wrong tree. I just smile and tell him he would be wasting his time, and I really don’t want to waste his time. He expresses curiosity about what I mean by that.

I explain that I do not want to cause offense, but I have strongly differing spiritual and religious views from his.

He asks me what my views are.

Without planning in advance, without putting any thought to the matter, without even any blushing or self-consciousness, I promptly leap out of the broom closet. I just blurt it out. I tell him I am a witch and studying Wicca.

This is not something I normally tell people, as a matter of simple prudence. You know, that whole burned at the stake thing. One can never be too sure what sort of reaction one might get announcing oneself to non-witches, non-Wiccans and non-pagans.

What possessed me to come out of the broom closet to Mormon missionaries? I don’t know. Maybe I just wanted the thrill of shocking them.

The younger one gets rather very wide-eyed. The older one, though, doesn’t even bat an eyelash or miss a beat. He casually remarks, “I had a girlfriend once who was a witch. Tell me more about what you believe.”

I raise an eyebrow at that. Touché.

Momentarily back on my heels — he dated a witch? — I do indeed tell them more. I speak of the Triple Goddess. I speak of the Wiccan Rede and the Rule of Three. I speak of why I had long ago turned my back on Christian churches, as they are mostly, to varying degrees, patriarchal, though some worse than others, like the Catholic Church and — I say this to them with a friendly grimace of apology — the Mormon Church. Within the world of witches and Wicca and paganism, women have quite a higher status, obviously, and take a back seat to no one.

To his credit, he listens with great interest. (The younger one is still just standing there, jaw slightly hanging open; I guess I truly did shock him.) The elder asks a few more friendly questions. We actually have quite a nice chat. We part on amicable grounds. I wish him a pleasant evening, and he wishes me the same…and the younger one blinks at me and mutely nods a goodnight. I wink at him. I couldn’t help it. His wide eyes get as wide as saucers.

Later, musing upon the encounter, and chuckling to myself, I feel a twinge of regret at not giving them the address of my ex. Here was a perfect opportunity to get a little revenge on him, and I let it pass by. Ah well. As I said, I am not vindictive. There is also that Rule of Three to keep in mind. Whatever you do, be it an act of kindness or an act of cruelty, it will circle back to you threefold. I did not want a bit of vindictiveness to come back and bite me in the ass.

Witches are coming out of the woodwork

As I said in my title to this piece, esoteric spirituality is noticeably on the rise. I am not talking about the popularity of the movie Hocus Pocus 2 (haven’t seen it, don’t want to see it, not my thing). Witches in film and TV have been around forever; that is not new.

No, something else has been driving what has been an undeniable tidal wave surge in witchery, and by extension, Wicca, paganism, Tarot, Qabala.

(Author’s note: Each of these terms occupies it’s own space, but there can also be, and often is, a lot of overlap and intermixing. Thus, for example, a witch may or may not be a Wiccan. A Wiccan may or may not be a witch. Pagans dance to their own drummer, literally, and might be all of the above or none of the above. Tarot has its own explosion in popularity going on, and Qabala is where every occultist lands sooner or later, daring to take on the challenge of the Tree of Life puzzle. Clear as mud? Okay, good. The point is, don’t fret too much about labels and categories. Much like the LGBTQ+ community, when my local Wiccans, Witches and Pagans Facebook group holds a meet-up and potluck, it is a raucous cacophony of different identities, but still a damn fun party. And one last note: contrary to what you remember from the TV show “Bewitched,” male witches are not “warlocks.” They are witches, unless he really wants to be called a warlock, which is fine. “Witch” is a gender neutral term. Now that we have all that cleared up, on with my point.)

Here is the measuring stick, a very unscientific one but I think a profoundly telling one, by which I declare that the numbers of witches have been increasing exponentially.

Books.

Back around 2014 or so, the occult section of my local bookstore occupied maybe 2 small shelves, a dozen or so titles down on floor level in the very back corner of the store where the light was not very good and you had to get down on your knees and squint to look at the titles.

Here is the occult section a couple weeks ago (coyly labeled “Body, Mind and Spirit” but mostly witchcraft books with a bit of Tarot mixed in):

This is just some of the witchy books. There were two more bookcases plus a table plus an entire other bookcase with assorted Tarot card decks. My local bookstore had just done a very massive rearrangement of furniture and book sections.

The kicker is, they moved these books to the front of store. I mean the first thing when you walk in the store is of course the section of new releases/best sellers, but the very next thing is this.

As a commercial enterprise, there would be one and only one reason why a bookstore would take the trouble to 1) stock so many titles on the subject and 2) move it to front of store.

The answer: The stuff is selling as fast as they can restock.

Some purist occultists bemoan commercialization, and it is true that a lot of quick-buck artists are trying to capitalize on just how trendy witchcraft has become. However, the point is these books have pushed to the front of the line. They are placed in front of cookbooks and romance novels for crying out loud.

So, why? And why now?

Naturally queer friendly, and naturally political, of course witchcraft is on the rise NOW

If you want to read an excellent introductory book on witchcraft, I highly recommend the book “The Dabblers Guide to Witchcraft: Seeking an Intentional Magical Path” by Fire Lyte. He is a gay man and has a wonderful writing style, serious and informative but with sprinklings of hilarious asides and witty observations.

What particularly caught my eye was his Chapter 4: The Rise of the Political Witch. He speaks of how, yes, witches are indeed part of the more frivolous aspects of our culture, in movies with big special effects budgets or in tales for children or Halloween. But, he notes:

“… what gets missed in our recollection is how closely aligned witches have always been with politics … Old stories are being revisited and traditional tales mined for feminist undertones, queer identity, and racial justice (p. 40) … From the Women’s March in 2017 to the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, you cannot miss the signs held or the costumes worn by people reviving the symbol of the witch as a warning to those in power (p. 42).”

Yes, indeed. A warning to those in power. That would be mostly cisnormative, heteronormative white males running a Patriarchy. Whether in politics or even in traditional churches, people who are not the power holders in that world have sought, and found, a welcoming home with witches, Wiccans and pagans.

It is empowering.

It is on the rise.

Methinks the proponents of Christian Dominionism, who are pushing book bans, who are pushing abortion bans, who are pushing to take away the right of gay people to marry, who want children to be taught in school the lie that we are a Christian nation founded as a Christian nation … they have some competition.

As more and more people, especially young people, answer pollster questions about religion by saying “I’m spiritual, but not religious,” methinks that may just be another way of saying, “I’m in the broom closet.” Perhaps?

A welcoming refuge for LGBTQ

If you are one of those people who answer the pollster, “I’m spiritual, but not religious,” maybe it is in part due to feeling more than a little battered and bruised by relentless evangelical Christian attacks. I myself had semi-positive views of many Christian churches, even the Catholic Church, when I was young, but I eventually turned my back upon them, because they turned their back on me and my bisexuality, not to mention issues I had with the baked-in misogyny of their theology.

I therefore found such a feeling of joy when I began to explore “alternative” spiritually and discovered that there is so much in it that is just plain gay! Not to mention very empowering to women.

Take Tarot cards for example. They are not just some fortune-teller’s game. They are an exploration of archetypes as expounded by Carl Jung and others. They are a tool for gaining self-awareness by using them to tap into your inherent intuitive nature. They are a means of exploring and contemplating the stages in our journey through life. Through intuitive interpretation, everyone on the LGBTQ+ rainbow can find themselves in Tarot. You could opt to purchase a newer deck that is literally queer, with queer artwork and themes. Or you could still opt for classic Tarot sets and find queerness therein.

Take for example one of the most iconic Tarot decks, the 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith set, and card XXI of the Major Arcana, The World card.

It is true that artwork in this set has Judeo-Christian overtones. Under the direction of Arthur Waite, the images were created by Pamela Colman Smith and both of them had a background in Christianity. However, they were also both members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an occultist group.

In the book “Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness” by Rachel Pollack, originally published in 1980, she notes this about The World card:

One of The World’s analogues is Shiva … Dancing Shiva is often depicted as an hermaphrodite, one half the body of Shiva, the other Parvati his female side. The esoteric tradition describes The World dancer as hermaphroditic, the dual sexual organs concealed by the banner, as if to say that the unity they represent lies beyond our knowing (p. 140).

The pose of the World Dancer mirrors the form of the glyph known as the Tree of Life from Qabala.

That brings me to a book I stumbled upon in my bookstore, a book that nearly had me jumping up and down in excitement, just from the title.

The book I found was: “Queer Qabala: Nonbinary, Genderfluid, Omnisexual Mysticism and Magick” by Enfys J. Book (they/them).

In the book’s introduction, they say:

“This book is not about arbitrarily, tenuously aligning queer concepts to Qabala as a gimmick … The fundamentals of what makes Qabala queer have been part of Qabala for centuries.”

I’m dancing like the World Dancer reading that, so excited to learn more. I have just started diving into this book, and it is not for the faint of heart, as Qabala is very complex. Also, the author notes, that Hermetic Qabala, which is what they are writing about, is distinguished from Jewish Kabbalah, out of respect to that closed Jewish devotional practice.

Hermetic Qabala indeed seems to turn gender stereotypes upside down and inside out, and I cannot wait to read more.

Find your path that is all yours and no one else’s

I have sprinkled into this article bits of witchery, Tarot, Qabala, but the fundamental point I want to make is this. To me, my path of being part of the LGBTQ+ world and my path of spirituality have parallels one to the other. Where I grew up, I did not see anything but a heteronormative world, and I experienced a fundamental inner despondency over feeling like I never could “fit in.” Likewise, in spirituality, I was thoroughly surrounded by a Christianity that never completely spoke to my heart, and thus, again, I felt a despondency over how I would never have a spiritual home.

On both counts I was mistaken. I simply didn’t have the information when I was younger. I didn’t have any exposure to a wider world of sexual identity. Likewise, I did not have any exposure to any alternative forms of spirituality.

Now, having found that I do have a place, I do have a home, in both realms of sexual identity and spirituality, I have a new bounce in my step, a new confidence, and a new inner peace. I am just barely starting on my spiritual path of witchcraft, Wicca, paganism and Tarot. Perhaps the most beautiful and simultaneously most daunting thing is to learn that in these realms, you must indeed find your own path. No one is going to tell you “do this” and “do that.” No hierarchical structure is going to tell you the “right” thing to believe or the “right” way to do a ritual or the “right” way to fill an intention jar. You have to study, you have to learn, you have to explore, you have to get in touch with and listen to your inner voice, your intuition, and then you create your own magic and blaze your own path.

That is so very empowering.

I am so glad I dared to come out of the closet to those Mormon missionaries. I would have given anything, though, to be a fly on the wall in their room that night to hear what they had to say about me. I wonder if I frightened them?

Now, if you will excuse me, I have a cauldron to attend to.