Abstract:

This article explores the religious and political identities of feminist Witches through a discussion of the way feminist Witchcraft constructs prehistoric Goddess societies as colonized by patriarchal societies and early modern European witch hunts as maintaining that colonization. Feminist Witches often use colonial and postcolonial language to indicate the relationship between patriarchal religion(s) and/or system(s) and that of women and women-centered religious systems. Thus, though often problematic, colonialism stands in for patriarchy in many instances; similarly, postcolonialism stands in for the shaping of a new future in which feminist Witches are engaged. This article explores how feminist Witchcraft uses the metaphor of colonialism and postcolonialism with an aim to understand how feminist Witches understand their own identities both as members of a marginal new religious movement and as predominantly white women in a postcolonial setting.

Author: Chris Klassen