NEW YORK – In a first, the New-York Historical Society is hosting a program about Witchcraft and the queer community. Reckoning with History: Queer Witchcraft Today, is being presented by the Historical Society’s Center for Women’s History in partnership with the American LGBTQ+ Museum and will feature queer leaders of the Wiccan and Pagan communities.
The October 14th event will address “reconciling the historical trauma of past witch trials and attempted cultural erasure” with the work of panelists and others in “building dynamic communities.” Marketed as a “salon,” the program will be held at Historical Society’s building on Central Park West in Manhattan, and has been planned in conjunction with The Salem Witch Trials: Reckoning and Reclaiming, a groundbreaking exhibition currently running at the Historical Society through January 22, 2023.
Panelists will include Marcelitte Failla, a Black and biracial educator and scholar of African heritage religions; Christopher Penczak, Witch and co-founder of the Temple of Witchcraft Tradition; and Raquel Salas Rivera, a Puerto Rican poet, translator, editor, and founding member of the Yerbamala Collective. Ben Garcia, Executive Director of the American LGBTQ+ Museum, will moderate the program. It will also feature a performance by the interdisciplinary dancer and choreographer, Catherine Cabeen.
The program comes at a time when misunderstandings about witchcraft and Paganism remain widespread. Similarly, underrepresented voices in the Pagan community itself, including LGBTQ+ practitioners, Black witches and witches of color, are still struggling to be recognized.
“African heritage religions still do not have the same representation as Christian traditions in Black religious discourse, and esoteric and occult practices occupy even less space,” said Marcelitte Failla, whose academic expertise spans both the United States and the African diaspora. “For instance, it is not until the last decade that we see more people openly practicing and studying Hoodoo. Public forums like this showcase how common yet complex these traditions are and that they need to be taken seriously by the wider public.”
Failla, a self-identified Black witch, is a practitioner of African American Hoodoo and Yoruba Ifá. She views her practice as “embedded in a larger movement of mostly Black women and femmes returning to the traditions of our ancestors.”
Her spiritual practice is also rooted in social justice.
“It’s an exciting time, especially with the growing emphasis on employing these spiritual technologies to resist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, and I am proud to be a part of that.”
Christopher Penczak notes how events like this fit into both the current moment and the history that he helped trailblaze. Penczak is the author of over thirty books on witchcraft, magic, and spirituality, including Gay Witchcraft: Empowering the Tribe, which has become a seminal work since it was published in 2003.
“I think there is more and more recognition today for the marginalized and the intersection of the marginalized groups with the magickal and their role in history,” Penczak said. “I think as we look beyond the broad strokes of history, we explore the quieter but hugely influential voices of those outside of the mainstream—the voices of all minorities, whether they had that identity in their time in history or not. The philosophical, artistic, musical, and magickal groups and people both pioneer ideas and shape the movements of history and document what is a living tradition before the bigger societal turns recorded in the history books.”
Penczak noted how the New Age spiritual landscape has shifted over the past two decades. This is especially so with regard to witchcraft and the queer community.
“The magickal community has changed a lot since the early 2000s, and even more so from when I was researching and living the material that would become Gay Witchcraft in the 1990s,” he explained. “For one, we have become larger but even more disparate in terms of training and culture. This has been good in some ways, as it’s broken the unnecessary aspects of community, such as mandatory gender polarity or heteronormative symbolism as the only interpretation of the mysteries. Yet it’s also made us a bit rootless in what is fundamental modern Witchcraft culture.”
Even so, Penczak understands why Witchcraft is so powerful and affirming for so many members of the queer community.
“I think the common point of Witches and Queer people is our similar state of ‘betweenness’,” he explained. “We are oriented between the larger groups in the patterns of life and community. Rather than make it a disadvantage, we embrace it and use our ability to be neither this nor that to our advantage. We can become free in a way that most people, in only one role and identity, are not in our society. We recognize the freedom in each other, and often are attracted to the other.”
Witchcraft and queer identity, according to Penczak, also share a powerful link.
“Queer people struggling with birth religion find a personal divine relationship in Witchcraft they never had before,” he said. “Both are really an orientation more than a choice. You slowly discover what you are and hopefully you have a word for it, maybe a community for it, support and shared experiences. But even if you didn’t, you would still be what you are. Both usually require a coming out process, as you are most often not born into a queer or Witch family. There is a quest, a seeking and an initiatory experience that utterly changes you, so you can’t really ‘go back’ to a state of not knowing.”
This spirit of openness and reclamation are at the heart of the program’s conversation. And it is notable that Reckoning with History: Queer Witchcraft Today is being held at one of New York’s leading legacy cultural institutions, which has undergone a significant transformation in recent years and expanded into acclaimed cultural programming reaching new and widening audiences.
New-York Historical Society as viewed from Central Park West – Image credit: Ajay Suresh – CC BY 2.0
“I am thrilled that the New-York Historical Society is bringing this program to the public. I think large institutions are slowly but surely reflecting what people not typically associated with these institutions are doing,” said Failla. “I see this in the art world with increased showcased works by Black queer and trans folks. Even in academia, there is more attention to African-heritage religions and Black occult spiritual practice. But this shift is primarily due to the hard work of people invested in social justice, assuming leadership positions and insisting that many voices are heard.”
Keren Ben-Horin, New-York Historical Society’s Curatorial Scholar in Women’s History, echoes this sentiment. She notes that the program aligns with the goals of the Salem Witch Trials exhibition’s lifting of marginalized narratives and “allows us to expand these themes” and “bring it into the present day.”
“We are hoping that making space for diverse voices and identities can broaden our perspective and understanding of historical events and promote tolerance and justice,” said Ben-Horin.
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