Witches don't exist and the perpetual GRRR

For my life I can't remember where I was recently when I heard a mother tell her little child (I think it was a boy) that witches don't exist.

Now, I can understand in certain circumstances it is safer to say this.  There are still parts even in our own country where people accused of witchcraft are killed in the most gruesome ways (the last one I heard involved stoning and a burning tyre).  In other cases it's easier to say something like this if the crowd or environment you find yourself in would lend itself to too much other unwanted attention (swinging both towards disbelief and accusations of insanity, or suddenly developing a swarm of vultures).

However, this was in Bothasig, where once a month we have a holistic fayre, and eight times a year we have public Sabbath celebrations at the home Temple of one of South Africa's better-known Pagan Academies.  Really, by this time, it isn't as though people don't know we're there.

So where does this thing of witches not existing come from?  I can agree in terms of cartoon and movie witches - much as I wish I could, I can't blow things up with my mind and the only monsters I hunt are debts and bus tickets.  And the occasional loose ciggy.  I can't fly on a broom (physically), nor wingardium leviosa my keys off the floor when I drop them.  BUT!  Witches are very much real and practicing in modern society.

We have organisations in the political arena associated with the general Pagan community; we're involved in hospitals, schools, prisons, media and other corporate entities, and all the way down to grass roots level in terms of being landscapers, bankers, caregivers, even celebrities (no, you won't get any names out of me).  In so many of these positions we are active as Witches, but unless we choose to come out of the broom closet to you (such as I have done as both a Pagan and a Witch), we stay hidden and just do our thing.  We have had our spots in both the papers and on television (even I had my ten seconds' fame!) and are trying to inform the general public that no, we are not the wicked figures portrayed in older literature and media, or even largely in modern media (some films, like The Craft, are really well done in terms of story and effects and such, but has very little to do with real WitchCraft).

Don't get me started on such things as Hansel and Gretel - also brilliant for effects and action - zero in terms of what We actually are.  and again the same for one of my favourite flicks at the moment, Vin Diesel's The Last Witch Hunter.  The closest so far is one I found by accident online the other night, The Last Keepers - what I saw of it was beautiful, but I passed out without getting all that much of the story.

But I digress.
We practice our Crafts and our crafts, and love teaching these skills to others.  We Laugh and cry, kick and scream, love and dislike intensely.  We are human.  The only real difference is, we identify as Witches because we have learnt things that fall outside of the "normal" scope of things.  We look at Fantasy and maybe wish things were different, but then pull our heads out of those clouds and face the real world.  We use magic in difference forms to help and heal those around us - sometimes magic as simple as a hug or a kiss, other times as intensive as a cleansing or a healing.  Or maybe just the magic of a well-informed mind.


Witches are real.