Abstract:

Feminist Witchcraft is a nature religion that posits a holism based on the immanence of the Goddess. This article outlines how these concepts—’nature’ and ‘holism’—are understood by feminist Witches and then explores the implications of these concepts in the context of two novels. A holism based on the inclusion of humanity and the rest of the natural world in the body of the Goddess implies that humans, and their cultural and mechanical constructions, are also part of nature. Thus a dismissal of mechanistic technology as inherently unnatural does not fit with the declared holism. Yet both of these novels show suspicion, to varying degrees, of mechanistic technology. A conversation with Donna Haraway and her cyborg theory provides a way to rethink the divide between natural and technological sometimes found in these novels and in feminist Witchcraft in general.

Author: Chris Klassen