Original Magic: The Rituals and Initiations of the Persian Magi - Michael M. Hughes 2018
Guerrilla Magic
Magic Beyond the Altar
There’s more to magic than just what you do in the privacy of your home at your altar. Resistance magic means doing magic in the streets, forests, courtrooms, corporate offices, retail stores, and other public locations. As noted earlier, the Yippies organized hundreds of protesters to levitate the Pentagon in 1967, and the anonymous members of WITCH, in their pointy hats and black cloaks, are regulars at protest marches in the Trump era. Dozens of witches sat on the sidewalks outside of Trump Towers in New York City and Chicago with their feathers, Tower tarot cards, and stubby orange candles taking part in the first binding spell on the forty-fifth president in 2017.
Resistance magic comes alive in the streets.
Guerrilla magic also includes leaving charged magical objects in the places where they can be most effective—a corporate office, a courthouse, the site of a police shooting, or a forest threatened by development. In short, guerrilla resistance magic can, and should, be applied wherever it is needed.
And it doesn’t have to be obvious or public. Consecrating normal-looking rocks and placing them on your target’s property is a way to hide magic from even the most sophisticated observers and security cameras. Magical oils, liquids, and powders have long been used on unaware targets, particularly in Hoodoo and Conjure, in which “foot track” powders and liquids are applied to the path on which the target walks. But please don’t send or carry unidentified powders or anything that could be construed as a chemical or biological weapon anywhere near an elected official or corporate executive … unless you are hankering to spend a lot of time in a federal prison!
One of the most important uses for guerrilla magic is in defense of the earth. Seeds are compact, portable magic, are cheap, and have the capacity to dramatically transform a blighted strip of land. Crystals and stones imbued with healing energy can be buried in or strategically deployed at depleted or polluted sites.
Here are some ideas for putting guerrilla resistance magic to work in your community:
• Spread native wildflower seeds in vacant lots and in run-down areas to bring beauty to blighted neighborhoods.
• Write chalk messages or sigils on roads and parking lots.
• Leave Justice tarot cards with the names of unjustly convicted activists or police victims written on them on courthouse property or at police stations. You can also mail them to officials—they make quite an impression.
• Cover your town or city with stickers and flyers with magical sigils, phrases, or images.
• Create costumed protest rituals (à la WITCH).
• Leave talismans of protection at schools, women’s health clinics, and offices of progressive organizations and candidates, or give them out to activists participating in direct action.
• Perform exorcisms of a corporate headquarters, a church that preaches hate, or a corrupt politician’s campaign headquarters.
• Organize flashmob-style rituals in public places.
• Hold a mock funeral for the earth outside the office of a major polluter.
The qualities that make guerrilla resistance-magic actions most effective are:
Spectacle: The more unusual, unexpected, or shocking the better. Perhaps an army of people in rabbit costumes interrupts a Big Pharma trade show to protest the unnecessary use of lab animals. And spectacle doesn’t have to be loud and flashy: a silent protest can be incredibly unsettling and powerful.
Humor: Try to avoid being too serious. Humor works to engage spectators and draw allies, and it is also a weapon against the powerful and the arrogant. Use it wisely against them. An audience breaking into nonstop laughter during a speech by a white supremacist is much more effective than scattered individual heckling. The Trump binding spell made fun of his small hands by incorporating a stubby orange candle or baby carrot as a component and ended with rousing laughter. Powerful egotists hate people laughing at them—so don’t miss any chance to do so.
Creativity: One reason many protest or consciousness-raising actions fail to get media attention is because they’re unoriginal—everyone has seen and done it before. Don’t be boring. We’ve all seen sit-ins and die-ins. Stretch your boundaries beyond the normal activist playbook. A protest opposing construction of a strip mall on ecologically sensitive land is one thing, but the same protest accompanied by robed Druids casting protection magic on the trees is something people will never forget.
Of course, much resistance magic you can, and should, do on your own. But use adequate caution. Even if you’re not doing anything illegal or dangerous, you could get hassled or even arrested.
Activism is never safe. Fighting for justice and equality and to protect the oppressed and the voiceless will never be free of risk. But that didn’t stop the African Americans who sat down at whites-only lunch counters, the Pagans who occupied land to oppose the construction of nuclear power plants, or the antiracist activists who linked arms to confront angry white supremacists in Charlottesville.
It shouldn’t stop you.