Witchcraft in Today’s World

 


Witchcraft in Today’s World

Whenever someone hears about witches or witchcraft, their mind typically goes to either a movie about a green villain with a broomstick or about the trials that happened in Salem long ago. However, most people, including myself before I began to actively investigate it, don’t realize how integrated it is into our society. There are still current areas of life where people enlist in the services of witches or magic in general. For example, one of the places you would least expect to find witchcraft is in a Farmer’s Almanac from 2017.


In my “professional” opinion, there are a few reasons why the average American might be surprised to find ads for witchcraft in the Farmer’s Almanac. First, an almanac of this sort is usually a relatively scientific guide about weather patterns and strategies for planting the most successful crops during a certain year. Having 3-4 pages at the back of this guide dedicated to witchcraft to help your crops grow or tell your future seems very odd and almost delegitimizes all of the actual scientific predictions made before. Second, the year of the almanac is 2017. It is easy to see why witchcraft was popular in ancient times where rituals and practices would be done to gain the favor of various agricultural or rain gods. However, with the amount of data and science that is available to farmers in this day and age, especially in a predominantly Christian country like the United States, it is hard to understand why these practices still exist or even if there is a single farmer in the United States who ascribes to them. Third, targeting witchcraft towards a population that is statistically conservative and one who in theory frowns upon these practices once again makes the farmer’s almanac a weird place for witchcraft.


Upon reading through all the various services offered, including objects that bring good luck and various fortune renderings, I was surprised with the sincerity involved. These advertisements seemed so ironically well-written that they could be in a Saturday Night Live skit, but because of their publishing in something as official as the Farmer’s almanac, I was struck by the inherent authenticity of these services. In closing, this is just one example of how ever-present witchcraft is in our modern world, even if we may not realize that it is right under our noses. This semester will continue to reveal those areas once imagined as niche but revealed to be ever-present. 





Comments

  1. williams.dan76September 18, 2024 at 9:57 AM

    Great first blog, thanks. I appreciate your discussion of occult beliefs mixed into almanacs. I think this moix date back 400 years or so when there were fluid boundaries between science and magic. At one time predicting when to plant crops seemed as magical as predicting the future. Today's almanacs are a bit more scientific in offering advice on crop planting, but there are still remnants of occult belief in the advertisements for healing and fortune telling. Ultimately, i think all of us still hold occult beliefs of one kind or another. I look forward to reading more of your blog entries.

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