The Establishment (AfroPunk) Version

I am very sorry to announce that this is the last Black Witch column. It’s been a wonderful run, nearly at the one year mark too. I am truly happy and enchanted by all the wonderful people that I have met and the places I’ve gone. It’s totally world changing to me, I am very happy to see how this column/blog have influenced more people than I originally thought and how widespread it became in such short time. It’s really amazing and I’m very happy to see that there is a stronger Black Pagan community (and that there’s an actual, defined Black Pagan community) than I originally thought. I’m really happy for the opportunity that Afro-Punk had given me (even when sometimes they would make me pretty fussy with the edits), the support I’ve gotten from friends and readers and all the cool stuff I got to do – I mean, it’s amazing to introduce myself as Black Witch and to see the responses or even better yet, find that I have a reader that I didn’t know of.

It has been really nice to experience all these things, even if I feel like some of the success came a little too fast at times. It’s not every day I meet Lupe Fiasco and find out he’s one of my readers or that I see inside my column’s fan page are people who are from the Divine Nine or Black Ivy League alumni in the mix of my usual readers and this is only with ten to eleven months on the column. I thought it would be years before I would experience something like that. It was already surprising when I went to the Afro Punk Festival last year and people were walking up to me, knowing who I was. I honestly thought by the time of the AP Fest, everyone would have forgotten my column because it was a month before. Instead people were happy to see me, chatted with me and said they hope I would stay as their columnist. And I did for as long as I could.

It’s not anything bad that’s making me stop. If anything, this is the smoothest run I could ever anticipate. I haven’t gotten any hate mail, even when I called out the haters (turns out they were writing to Afro-Punk so AP was getting my hate mail, I was getting fan mail) because hey, if you got something to say, whine to me, not AP. I always promise to be nice – if it’s worth it. I’ve got a multitude of readers far beyond the spectrum of Black Pagans and even when things seemed odd, I always had friends to vent to. Yeah, a dumb commenter may be made as the carp of the day in my circle, always gave me and my crew entertainment but it’s wonderful to share the nice comments and really kind readers that I’ve gotten. What’s putting the brakes on this column is that I don’t feel I could dedicate as much time to it as I would like to maintain the column as is. Between the writing, editing, responding to readers and making sure Black Witch remains as seamless as possible, it gets burdensome for a college student such as myself on the brink of graduation and starting my life.

Thank you all for your support, this has been a very happy experience of my life and I wish you all a very happy, merry April Fools.

Lolz.

Happy April Fools, suckas! Ah, Black Witch is still here, gonna be here and will be staying here. I quite like this spot, all decorative and my words got power and weight to them and such. A Witch can get used to this, especially this Black Witch right here. “Putting on the brakes” my rufflebutt, I’m perfectly fine. I got columns for months and months. I was going to say I was leaving due to “unfavorable pressure” but I figure I might as well be a bit honest for authenticity. Even if I tried, I couldn’t care less what people say about my column, let ‘em talk. My inbox stays silent of the wack pedigree and I barely get static so if people did dislike Black Witch, it must not that bad of a grind. Besides it’s not like they got anything better to give, not even some of their cheesy words to match their whine. Besides, the more they chat, the more name I get so it works out for me in the end. As a matter of fact, Black Witch is even turning into a yearly book titled Black Witch: Life from the Black Pagan Perspective, vol. 1. That’s right, volume 1. Not only to I plan to stay but I plan to stay for a very. Long. Time. Preorders start in June on the anniversary, June 9th.

Since Black Witch isn’t going anywhere, lemme give you this week’s column,“Nice To Know Ya”:

You know what my pet peeve is as a diviner and witch? Know-it-alls.

Not intellectuals, know-it-alls. They think they know you like the back of their hand because they saw the palm of yours. It isn’t they’re not good at it, some of them are merely overflexing a well-wrought skill, it’s just they’re so posh and pompous about it, like they don’t need to get to know you, they already have your number – but they’re total enigmas to the mortal mind. (Yeah, right.)

One thing I find rather common in my experience is that people are truly uncomfy with the prospect of the unknown. Gotta turn over every rock, put religion in a test tube and peer review the afterlife. There’s nothing wrong with seeking knowledge or having it, it’s just how you go about it. No one knows truly everything and not everyone measures on the same scale however these people like to pretend that their minds are gifts from the gods, that they have no discomfort because they know all…supposedly. To seek knowledge isn’t problematic nor is being good at reading people. The issue comes alive when the person is too reliant on anything that can be a knowledge bank and get cocky about it because they believe they no longer live with the unknown being the unknown and not only that but somehow it makes them mysterious that they can “easily” figure you out and you can’t.

Granted, as a palmist, I could steal a glance at someone’s hand and figure them all the same but here are a couple issues with that and why:

How pretentious – I know I have a tendency of hiding behind a shell of myself but to live in it? That’s never good. I’m simply introverted but that’s just overly insular. It’s okay to be reserved and to have a method of interacting with people but to hide always never benefits anyone.

People aren’t black and white – Say I scan a palm because I want a quick way to know how to interact with the person but even then I know I could be surprised. No one is a simple box to open up and examine – the human mind simply doesn’t work that way. If it did, mental disorders would be a cakewalk to handle and the field of psychology would be very pointless. Plus, it’s much less headache to let people be themselves rather than figure them out all at once.

The idea of knowing everything of everyone but to the world be an absolute mystery is, to me, a way to make up relevancy where there isn’t any and to mask insecurity. They want a noteworthy talent and to even be talked about for it. It reminds me of the “wizard” in the Wizard of Oz and The Wiz where the wannabe showstopper tries to play up who they are around people who don’t truly know them or how small and pathetic they really are, just like the big and scary wizard being only a scared and failed man poised behind a curtain. Indeed, there is comfort in knowing countless information about someone. They aren’t strangers anymore and they can’t surprise you with a hidden trait that you may not like. The person is, well, conquerable and controllable even and that’s what I think those people want: control. It provides some extra control in life where the future is certain, waste is minimalized and practically nothing is for naught again. To have a grip on thing, not a bad thing to ask for, right?

Yes and no. Is getting a better grip on life good? Sure! Or I wouldn’t do divination or spellwork, let alone support it. However taking on the severe notion that everything and everyone in life must be attached with a string is a bit concerning. Generally those who try to control others have a problem controlling themselves. I’ll glance at a palm to help me out interacting with the person but I don’t want to make it feel like I’m trying to be a puppet master and assert dominance where there isn’t any and definitely no need to. In my experience, those that want to be an occult know-it-all have some pretty disheveled lives themselves, they’ve been picked on, made fun of, hapless victims of the hands of fate or feel unnecessarily threatened somehow. They can’t have any control in themselves or it’s too hard to gain control that they try to find it by subverting it onto others. This is why they try to pretend they know everything about everyone but no one knows anything about them, it creates the illusion of superiority because there’s a serious bout of inferiority floating about in their minds somewhere. Divination and spellwork is here to help people, not pretend you’re awesome.

Usually these folks can stun the crowd and even get a few to believe them and their pseudo-intellectual ways. They carry a highfalutin air about them, that they’re smarter than the average populace and can quote a few dusty books (usually incorrectly). They dress different from the crowd, decked out in tons of silver symbolic jewelry, perhaps has a Korn or System of a Down shirt in their wardrobe, something from Hot Topic, their hair may have seen better days. Or maybe they dress like Harvard professors from the 1940s (and may even have the social views to match). They talk kinda fast and like every sentence they say is a remarkable zing, paced as if they have the mind of a sage man or thematic like they’re V from V for Vendetta, usually walking with hunched shoulders.  Depending on how deep in the occult they are, they may even make reference to otherworldly beings as if they’re so tough and powerful they could sic a deity on you. Always, they make it seem that no matter how hard you try to outwit them or have a level conversation with them, they imply that any chance to compete intellect is futile for they will always come out on top. Hey, they may even brag about women and sex like a 14 year old with a flair for stuffy chatter – despite the fact that nary has a woman ever approached them and they have no idea how to talk to one without sounding stupid. These people just want to mystify you with all their personal smoke and mirrors but they’re pretty easily handled fast with some straight talk and not being afraid to say, “Oh really?” They don’t like questions, just submission. If anything, they’re flustered by non-submission, they don’t want to be seen as an equal, they want to be a superior, something to fear. Take them down a few pegs and unravel the enigma they’re trying to be and you find someone who just wants to be somebody for once.

I think that while it is fun and very good to know divination because of its usefulness to get a better grip on life but to rely on that for relevancy or control is pretty pathetic. The world is a pretty wild place filled with coincidences, happenings, surprises and weird stuff, it’s impossible to harness all of that and rather pointless to. The unknown is the unknown, so what? Not everything is meant to be discovered, examined or thoroughly understood to a fine point, including people. To study the occult, there shouldn’t be a direct aim to control it but to best understand it and work with it. Those that want to control others or to somehow have what they want to believe is an unfair advantage aren’t mysterious, they’re stereotypical. It’s clear what they want and what they lack. It’s annoying how much leverage people give them because they know a few big words in the dictionary (it’s another argument altogether of whether or not they use them correctly) and can act like a character out of an Alan Moore movie. They’re believed because they act the part, it’s a common stereotype that those involved with the metaphysics acts weird and creepy because they know something the general public don’t. These folks act pompous because they’ve stumped and amazed enough people willing to believe that stereotype and I’m stumped and amazed that people believe them.

Usually those who are good at what they do generally don’t flaunt it. There’s no need to. Why show yourself off as something big and bad to those that shouldn’t care? The best diviners I know never show it until they have to and some of the most intellectual people I know have a multiplex and full personality filled with perks, quirks, moods, strong suits and shortcomings. They believe that the proof is in the pudding, not the recipe and that’s how it should be. Know-it-alls are more like know-nothings that want to be something, intellectuals just that – intellectual.

Speaking of intellectual, have you read the post below about Black Victims in the Holocaust? Very interesting read