One of most surprising findings in this project is that the self-identified witches in this study talk about hiding their witch identity, while at the same time, insisting they are proud to be a witch and that they are not ashamed of it. The main reason for hiding their witch identity is to avoid the stigma it brings and ultimately an attempt to avoid
social control mechanisms. There appeared to be a general pattern that if they did not have physical markers that showed their witch identity then they would not have as many stories of discrimination, or in some cases, no self-reported discrimination.
Most participants who were hiding their identity in some way (whether it be to family, co-workers, or romantic partners) did so because they simply do not want to be judged. For example, Vanessa said, “I feel like I keep everything that’s sacred inside…a small bit of it is because I don’t want to be judged. I mean everybody cares to an extent what other people think. No one doesn’t care all the way.” On the other hand, a few participants described not hiding it, but also not advertising it, such as Calley who said, “So, it’s like I’m out here, I don’t tell people, you know. I wear my earrings or whatever and you know, if people notice, then whatever…I don’t care.”
Some participants described hiding their witch identity because of the fact that they lived in a conservative location geographically. For example, Michelle said, “Um, I'm very relaxed with my witchcraft because I live in Charlotte, North Carolina, and people in this area are real skeptical of things like that. Um, so if asked, I'm very vocal about yes, I'm a witch, but I don't rub it in people's faces much like people in this area do religion. (laughs).” Michelle was very light-hearted about not advertising her witch identity, but it would be important to note that Michelle has a very alternative physical appearance regardless of her self-described witch identity. She is covered in tattoos from head to toe, shaves her head, and has many piercings. She seems to be very comfortable living an “alternative lifestyle,” which would explain why she was more carefree in her discussion of her identity.
Most participants did not share the carefree attitude that Michelle portrayed, and instead described themselves as proud witches, but witches who did not go out of their way to advertise their identity to others. For example, Maria said, “If the subject comes up naturally. I don’t go out of my way to announce my spirituality. I don’t try to push people’s buttons or to make anyone uncomfortable. I don’t hide who I am either.” It was very important for the women who do not “advertise” their witch identity to go out of their way to make it clear that they also would never lie about it and are very upfront when asked about it. Michelle’s feelings about, “coming to terms,” with being a witch and Maria’s method of not advertising her witch identity are similar to the
reported feelings of LGBTQ individuals who go through times of acceptance of their identity and then go through the process of ‘coming out’ with their identity (Adams 2010).
There was a general mix of participants who were open about it to their parents and others who were not open with family/friends. However, the one group of people that most participants in this study said that they adamantly did not want to know their identity were co-workers. Co-workers pose a unique pressure on self-identified witches because they are people that the witches see daily, can impact their ability to make money (and thus live. Food, shelter, etc.), and ultimately make their days tolerable (or intolerable). When asked if she was open to her co-workers about her witch identity, Julie said, “absolutely not”.
Angela went as far as to say, “I hope I'm not negating your qualifiers for these interviews by saying, I really don't call myself a witch. In every job that I've had except
for my current one, I've had customers, members of the public come up to me and ask me directly if I was a witch, or make a statement like, you're definitely a witch. The thing that confused me about the frequency of this was that I really wasn't wearing any identifying jewelry, clothing, or anything…Well, I really don't call myself a witch really. Just for brevity in day to day encounters. But I suppose, if I were to do that, I think the thing that would bother me, not about the philosophies or principles or the universal understanding or any of that, I would probably be concerned about my family's perception. Because they don't understand my journey. They don't know a lot of my journey. If they were to see or hear that I was considering myself a witch, they would have a really deep disappointment.”
Angela’s story and decision to never call herself a witch out loud (until this interview) described a strict, Fundamentalist Southern Baptist upbringing. She was taught that witches were evil, and anyone even associated with them would go to Hell. She said, “I've never described myself as a witch to anyone. I have been called that and classified that in broad terms in social gatherings and events. Whenever someone asks me specifically about my, I guess, spiritual leanings, I have to preface it with I was raised fundamentalist Southern Baptist. Now that I am an adult, I have been in the world and understood many things, I'm really far away from that now. I subscribe to in a broad term, a Pagan philosophy.”
Courtney, who was in a similar situation with her family, describes coming out as a witch as similar to coming out as gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual. She said, “So, for me, I feel like I’m still in the process of trying to…it’s kind of like coming out to your
parents. It feels like that in a religion and it shouldn’t be that way.” As discussed earlier in chapter 1, Courtney identifies as politically conservative and someone who adheres to traditional gender roles and traditional family values. Her use of the phrase “coming out” was intriguing because her comments made it sound like it was morally okay to have to “come out” as gay, but that it should never be something that is tolerated when it comes to religion. Her comments fit with her overall view that she should not be viewed as a deviant when other there are other “worse” deviants.
Another common theme was hiding their identity early on in their process of becoming a witch because someone close to them had a negative reaction to it. Calley discussed how she lost a relationship with her boyfriend after they had been together for almost two years. She said, “Um, at first. At first, I was hiding it. Um, my, my ex actually like, when I started like reading books about it, like at the very beginning, pre- well the beginning's like when I was three, but like when I started getting into witch- with books and everything, he saw I bought a couple of books and he like flipped out over it. And, yeah, it, it, it's just like, and then I started hiding 'em, you know what I mean I'm like, "Fine, you know what I mean, if it's gonna make you upset I'll just hide it." Calley describes it being hard on her early on in her process of becoming a self-identified witch, but later tells a story where a co-worker accosted her after seeing a pentagram necklace.
In this situation Calley was more confident in her beliefs and challenged her co- worker back by saying, “And, I asked her too, I'm like, "What's your religion?" 'Cause like, I'm like, "You're coming at me, what's your religion?" She's just like, "Oh I'm regular."
Like, what the hell does that mean? Hey, I know, once you said that to me, I was like, "I can't talk to you anymore, like you're not listening.” One interesting theme in almost every interview was that each participant, whether they described themselves as
dressing super alternative or dressing very conservative and modest, wore some type of jewelry to represent their witch identity. Most commonly they wore pentagrams
(upright, not connected with Satanism) or pentacles. Ironically, it was frequently these small tokens of jewelry that lead to some of the participants discussions on social control and how they had been discriminated against.